


Sarcophagus

by PeachySeals



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series, 悪魔城ドラキュラX 月下の夜想曲 | Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Genre: Childhood Friends, Depression, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Multiple, Post-Season/Series 03, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:01:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27614552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachySeals/pseuds/PeachySeals
Summary: The facts speak for themselves, those bodies out there are fresher than the ones in here, than the ashes on the carpet, than the loathing in Adrian's voice. Those corpses were strung up by Adrian's hands, after they were so kind as to force animosity out of him."I'm here," Lyudmil confirms in a whisper, barely able to raise his own voice in utter awe. His friend has changed so much and so little- and it's obvious to Lyudmil that his heart is just as big and bleeding and compassionate as it's always been, but it's broken now. The same yet changed. "I'm here, my friend," he says louder, as the gleaming metal of Adrain's sword falls to the ground.
Relationships: Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya/Lyudmil
Comments: 15
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

There are pikes out front. 

Two lone pikes driven up through two putrid bodies frame the castle entrance, a morose signal, red flags. He knows it's a message, a drastic one bred from desperation, grief, wrath- he cannot begrudge the man who did this, he knows too intimately the emotions that fueled him. The man he knows too deeply, he's too close to him to pass judgement, he adores him too much. That's why he enters the castle at all, instead of being horrified by the mutilated corpses, he's concerned, he sees these actions and knows the perpetrator is in imminent need. Those pikes are a cry for help, not an act of malice, he can see the difference so plainly. 

The corpses rot in the sunrise, not yet afforded a miasma of stench, just thawing out from the chill of the night. Lyudmil can only swivel his gaze from them, nose upturned and eyes focused on the familiar, stately door of the castle. It opens with little effort. As imposing as the carved oak is, it's light under his touch; it yields to him, invites him in.

The main hall is a mess- it draws a gasp from ice leaden lungs and disgust from somewhere deep within Lyudmil. There are no corpses, only bones wrapped loosely in garments void of flesh to cover. There is armor, blood, there are weapons. Scorch marks on the walls and columns scream of a battle long since lost, or a triumph quietly claimed. The carpets are peeling, the wall is stained- water damage, inexplicable but not impossible. Nothing is impossible for Adrian Tepes, the boy who always finds himself in the way of trouble. 

No longer a boy now, Lyudmil thinks. Though it's been years since the two have last spoken, Lyudmil keeps the memories of their shared childhood close. This castle, which he'd tumbled into night after night, is not the same as it was- it's rougher now, more imposing in the absence of its master and mistress. A sad building, no longer a home but a tomb of what had once been.

The feeling must be killing Adrian if it's only crushing Lyudmil. 

He travels up the main staircase, shaken as he discovers more bodies- the blackened, browning offal still cloying to a few sets of armor, still crusted to bones. He holds his nose the further he travels, marveling at blood gone brown and mold stained carpets and fire, long gone but having left their mark on tapestries, walls, windows, everywhere. For a horrifying moment, he wonders if the castle is abandoned, if anyone could be living in this hovel without complaint. 

The halls are familiar, the shape of them engraved in Lyudmil's mind from a lifetime spent traversing them- the state of them is another thing. They're dusted over, particles floating through the air like a disgusting storm of snow. He comes across a hole in the hallway, at some point- a literal hole scorched into the stone, as if a great big poker melted the rock and mortar together, forming a little hall of its own. He can see straight through to another room- and from that room he can see into others. 

Weaving in between the burns, through tunnels of hollow stone and insulation, he follows the path of destruction, knowing already what he will find. 

A bedroom familiar and demolished sends stones tumbling down his throat, choking him with a nameless emotion. The floor is a sigil of blood, of burn, of grief. Carpeting torn and scorched, a familiar bedpost split in two as the remnants lie far from the door. Lyudmil's stomach is churning with dread; where once this room was a source of joy, of days spent in the blissful swaddle of childhood imagination, now he can see only death. A carpet that was once a raft, a floor the sea, and a bed a great mountain atop a world of dreams, all of it feels perverted somehow. The rosy lense of youth is gone, replaced by the terrible sight of reality. 

Lyudmil can only imagine what has happened here, can only dimly acknowledge what must have been. It hurts to think too much about the broken windows and the ashy, delicate painting affixed to the ceiling, or the small, shining ring settled against the burning carpet, untouched since the cataclysm. He takes a step forward, and there is a sword pressed into his back, one that threatens to tear through the delicate material of his cloak and sever quickly his spine. Lyudmil gasps, heart hammering in his throat. He does not move from the doorframe.

"Why are you here?" A voice, sweet and melodic and nostalgic, is gravel in his ears. Lyudmil smiles even knowing he's in danger, because he could never fear that lilting voice nor the man who speaks in it as a musician plays an instrument. 

"Why do you think?" He speaks coyly, barbing Adrian the way he always has. Theirs is a friendship of reciprocity in all things, one will push as the other pushes, and pull as the other pulls too. Snark is unbecoming of Lyudmil in this situation, but he cannot keep it from his voice, not when he craves the playful jabs and quips of simpler times.

The sword presses deeper, and Lyudmil cannot bring himself to care about the soft whisper of fabric being torn. "Excuse me? State your business before I remove you." Agitation, a glimmer of emotion Lyudmil loathes to draw from his friend. He's never been on the receiving end of Adrian's ire, his true ire, not the muted anger of childhood quips and stolen toys.

Lyudmil licks his lips, his throat is dry with nerves and the torment of travel- when is the last time he had water? "Hey now, didn't anyone ever teach you to respect your elders?" The coyness is back. It's an old point of contention between them- Lyudil is barely two years his senior, despite the fact that Adrian grew faster than a weed and was always the taller one, the smarter one, the more mature one. The joke doesn't seem to get through, Lyudmil can feel the silver sword tip burning against his skin as Adrian chokes.

"Eld-? Cease your nonsense, I haven't the time for a fool like you!" A noise bubbles out of Adrian's chest and Lyudmil _shivers_ ; he's never had Adrian growl at him, it makes his heartbeat skip and his palms start to sweat, but he doesn't let himself get intimidated. There is nothing to fear, no reason to be worried. His back is turned and he's changed with time and so much has happened but Adrian won't hurt him; he'd never hurt a stranger, much less a friend, not without provocation. Every bit the wolf he can mold himself into, there's nobody he would harm without reason. 

He thinks again of the corpse framed staircase, the skeletons...

Surely, they must have done something. They must have made egregious mistakes, or maybe they weren't a product of Adrian's wrath at all. Lyudmil draws up excuses for his friend, trying to subvert the conclusion he'd already come to the second he first walked in. But the facts speak for themselves, those bodies out there are fresher than the ones in here, than the ashes on the carpet, than the loathing in Adrian's voice. Those corpses were strung up by Adrian's hands, after they were so kind as to force animosity out of him.

Words still flow from his lips, unimpeded by fear. "Really? You can't even spare a moment for an old friend?" It's then that the sword shakes along with the hand holding it, and Lyudmil pulls away to turn around and slip down the hood of his cloak. He knows he hasn't changed much at all, he still has the same delicate jaw and tan skin and ashy, wavy hair, and the smattering of freckles that have never quite looked right on his face. His visage is old news; his eyes are the same mellow brown, his grin just as lazy as it's always been. 

Adrian is different- the set of his jaw is hard, his eyes lack their laughter lines, and his face is flushed, so much so that his skin looks dewy, almost  _ too _ alive. He's been crying. Lyudmil knows what the redness of his eyes means, the pout etched into perfect lips-

It all melts away into joyous sorrow. Adrian's expression is one of desperation. "Lyudmil?" He mumbles. "Is that… are you… really here?" And Lyudmil's heart breaks, because Adrian sounds so lost, so hopeful but strained, like he fears Lyudmil will disappear the instant he looks away.

"I'm here," he confirms in a whisper, barely able to raise his own voice in utter awe. His friend has changed so much and so little- and it's obvious to Lyudmil that his heart is just as big and bleeding and compassionate as it's always been, but it's broken now. The same yet changed. "I'm here my friend," he says louder, as the gleaming metal of Adrain's sword falls to the ground. He's on Lyudmil in a second, hands cold and firm are gripping his shoulders with an intensity unmatched; Adrian looks at him in equal parts disbelief and anger. 

"Why are you here? What possessed you to come back to Wallachia you foolish, foolish man?  _ How _ did you get back here?" Those fingers are pressed into his arms hard enough to bruise, and Adrian loosens his grip as if remembering his own strength too late. 

"That's hardly important!" Lyudmil fires back, reaching around to carefully dislodge Adrian's hold on him. When those arms drop, Lyudmil seizes forward, wrapping around Adrian's waist with reckless abandon. "All that matters is that I found you, it's been…" He bites his lip, losing resolve as the seconds tick by without Adrian hugging him back. "... Too long, let's say…" and in pulling away, Lyudmil sees eyes full of tears, ones that don't drop, trapped by a prison of faux calm carved into Adrian's face.

When Adrian speaks, it's in a soft, heady tone that always shows itself when tears begin to condense in his eyes. Lyudmil's seen it so many times before, in situations where a scraped knee was the only casualty, and a scolding the only consequence. "You could have been hurt, my friend, why did you come back here?" 

_ I missed you _ , Lyudmil wants to say, biting back the words with merciless hesitancy.  _ I couldn't leave you _ , _ not forever _ . 

"I just wanted to make sure you were alright..." He says, with all the gusto of a liar, a bad one. 

Adrian is too fragile to see it, the tilt of his head and the uptick of his mouth and the undeniable reality that there's no truth in his eyes. He mustn't hear or care about the obvious waver in Lyudmil's voice as he tries frantically to reassure him. His teary, doll like eyes narrow and he smiles a smile so fake that it  _ hurts _ . Lyudmil is no fool, and he can see that smile is a farce better than anyone; Adrian should know better, but he paints his face with it regardless. "I am alright, Lyudmil. I appreciate your time, your company, but you need not waste it on me. I'm fine." Hands drag up Lyudmil's shoulders, as though working warmth back into his limbs in gentle motions. Ever the caretaker, Lyudmil has to grab carefully at his wrists to stop him, to cut the distractions.

He says nothing for a while, lacing their fingers together, weaving them until they're holding one another's hands as they did ages ago. But Lyudmil is frowning, and it starts to chip the faux smile off Adrian's face when next he speaks. "You're fine?" Lyudmil parrots, irritated or maybe just tired. "Right. Of course, you're fine. You're alright, you're just peachy! Because people who are fine  _ absolutely _ stake others and post them by the front door like macabre lawn decor, is that it?" 

Adrian freezes, his hands jerking back in shock, pulling Lyudmil with him, as the two won't disentangle. "You-" he's shaking hard, looking at Lyudmil with this horrible, omnipresent guilt on his face. "You saw that?" 

A gloved thumb smooths over the back of Adrian's hand, calm intimacy that Lyudmil hopes will quell the mounting tension in the room. Adrian is an animal, poised to jump up and sprint away, afraid for his life and the small thread of care and love still between them. Lyudmil will never sever it. 

He's nonchalant, only shrugging in response to a loaded question. The severity of Adrian's actions can be overlooked for now, while he's in insurmountable need of comfort. "You made it hard not to, you know. Was that not the point?" 

"I… assumed…" He looks away, pausing. "... You greeted me so warmly, I didn't think you'd be so happy to see me if you'd witnessed that…" 

Lyudmil laughs. "Well that was stupid of you. I would greet you warmly regardless of the situation- there's nothing you could do that would throw me off at this point." The two of them share a smile, a small, reminiscent one. Adrian had once snapped the neck of a fawn when they were children. It was a baby, a weak little thing even smaller and more delicate than Lyudmil was at the time, and Adrian killed it without a thought, an intention, it was purely an accident. He cried for days afterwards, and even before he showed the most palpable remorse, Lyudmil couldn't bring himself to be disgusted or upset. He knows Adrian does nothing out of pure malice, that's not the kind of man he is.

Every memory he has of his friend is so pleasant, saccharine. He grins wide when he thinks again of their childhood. "Did you think I'd broken in through a window, like I did when we were little?" 

Adrian chuffs, stitching a smile onto his face, throwing his eyes beyond Lyudmil. "Perhaps," he says, softly, reverently. "Though if you did, I suspect you'd have broken  _ another _ ankle."

"That was one time!" Lyudmil defends. "Bringing it up constantly- you act like it inconvenienced you so, yet it was you who offered to carry me home!" 

"Out of kindness!" Adrian laughs. "Regardless, I am fine." 

Lyudmil frowns, because he knows how his friend lies to him so, not because he means to but because he's trying to delude Lyudmil the way he's already deluded himself. In his travels he's heard the stories, the tales spoken by blue robed wanderers and sycophant merchants trying to lead him into sales with a story and everyone, everywhere. There's not a person alive who doesn't already know of _The Alucard_ _and The Hunter and The Magician_. Mere months after their feats and they've become folklore, the talk of a continent. 

A great big tragedy, of a man mad with grief, sicking his hell hounds on thousands of good little people, so unsuspecting. Everyone knows it as _the tale of_ _Dracula and his hoards_ , but Lyudmil thinks of it only as _the death of Lisa Tepes, and the chaos that ensued._

It's with a grim face that he tries to address the obvious, the painful. "But- your mother. I heard- well, everyone heard-"

"Fine," Adrian repeats. His face hardens. "It was a whole year ago-" Deflection, deceit of himself.

Lyudmil presses on. "And your father. There's not a person 'round this side of the world who hasn't heard talk of your deed-" Before he can continue he's cut off again.

"It needed to be done, hardly something to cry about."

"I  _ never _ suggested you were crying, but now that you've brought it up, I wonder-" He reaches for Adrian's face, trying to frame the flushed features with his cool hands, providing little comforts in their small, familiar ways. Adrian snatches his wrists before going stiff, dropping them and dropping their contact, stepping away.

Instead of looking angry, he just looks defeated, or something very close to it. "You needn't be, I'm quite alright…"

"And the bodies?" Frustration bubbles out of Lyudmil's lips before he can stop it. "Are they fine too? Were you  _ fine _ when you did that?"

"That's-!" Adrian chokes on his own words. "Don't bring them up to me any further-" Adrian stumbles back into the hall, out of the horrible past and into the terrible present, from the fire to the frying pan.

"It  _ was _ you who did that, then, wasn't it? You 'aught to acknowledge it, Adrian. Unless I'm wrong somehow!" Lyudmil follows him, cornering his friend like he would prey, regretting every inch of tension between them.

Adrian  _ shakes _ , he trembles as a calf does from birth, eyes so glassy that Lyudmil wonders if the man can even see him anymore. "You  _ are _ wrong!" He barks at Lyudmil. "It's nothing, nothing, I'm fine!" 

"Really? Look me in the eye when you say it, then, old friend. Tell me you didn't pike those strangers and I promise I'll believe you. I trust that you would never lie to me." Though Adrian has been lying, insisting for the life of him that he doesn't need help, doesn't need assistance pasting himself together again.

Adrain's form sinks, hunches, he no longer looks as tall and mature as he did moments ago, standing in defiance of the emotions that paint themselves on his sleeve. "I…" He swallows, sullen, unable to look Lyudmil in the eye with any measure of certainty. Even defensive, Adrian refuses to cross that line between them, the one laid of bricks, of stones, every pebble of trust and faith in one another built up over nearly two decades now. 

"That's what I thought-"

" _ You've no right to judge me- _ " Adrian's heel catches on the floor, and he stumbles as he pulls away from Lyudmil further. The distance between them feels gargantuan.

"That is  _ not _ what this is!" Lyudmil insists, taking a step through the threshold, leaving behind the dilapidated room as Adrian backs away from him. 

"Then what is it? Cease this infernal interrogation already, I've no need of you,  _ I am fine! _ "

"You are not fine!" Lyudmil spits. "You  are not alright, you are not okay, you are in shambles, Adrian-  _ you need help _ -!" 

"No-!" 

" _ Yes!"  _

_ "No!" _

Lyudmil is nearly frothing at the mouth with concern so adjacent in his voice that he himself is on the verge of tears. "Why won't you just accept that you need help?!"

" _ Because I don't deserve it! _ " Adrian falls, his knees hit the floor with a sickening thud, buckling underneath him as he pitches forward into the carpeted stone. He's on the ground, the lowest Lyudmil has ever seen him. 

The room is behind them then, but the weight of it's machinations is unbearable. Lyudmil's chest is heavy with ice and he can't decide how best to pull Adrian out of this stupor. He's seen grief stricken people, remorse riddled fools, but they're hardly comparable to the emotional wreck in front of him. Adrian isn't crying, he isn't pitching a fit but he is hysterical with the vapid indifference of someone who's lost everything already. 

In a way, he has. 

His family is gone. His supposed compatriots, the hunter and the scholar, are long gone too. And what little love he had to give other people, what small shred of himself he was willing to put forth for humanity, has been compromised. In so little time his life has been thrown to the ground from a tower set high in a bleak, dreary sky. And now, because Adrian cannot seem to shake this cloud of horrible luck, Lyudmil is back to pick up the pieces. Instead of someone competent, Adrian's going to have to fix himself with the help of a queer buffoon. 

Lyudmil likes to think his presence only makes the situation slightly worse.

"... Really, you think you don't deserve help? You think that someone as wonderful as you, who's lost and sacrificed so much, doesn't deserve help?" Lyudmil sinks, slowly curling on the floor beside Adrian's trembling form. He's a distance away but he's close enough to reach out and touch Adrian, and he holds himself back from doing so just barely. He has the strongest desire to pull that tall, trembling body closer and sooth the horrible ache of grief that's flooded it- but he knows Adrian is a man of many boundaries. Crossing them won't do any good, not when he's already crossed so many in so little time; he's been here for but moments.

"Hrng-" Adrian mumbles into the hall carpet, otherwise unresponsive to what Lyudmil knew would become a rhetorical question. He's seen Adrian depressed before, he knows what these fits look like, but he doesn't know what needs to be done to pull Adrian out of the hole he's gone and crammed himself into.

"You know what you don't deserve?" Lyudmil says to the ceiling, laying on his back next to Adrian's prone form. "Me. You don't deserve to have to rely on a foul-tempered cretin who more often than not slams his own foot in his mouth when forced to comfort another living being, but hey, you're stuck with me."

"I  _ don't _ deserve you," Adrian grumbles out after a long stretch of silence. "You're too sweet a being for my melodrama, I am unworthy of you-"

"You  _ will _ deserve a foot up the arse if you don't pick yourself up off this floor and greet me properly, Adrian Tepes." 

_ That _ seems to startle Adrian, enough that a pitiful little sniff is accompanied by the ghost of laughter. He turns, facing Lyudmil with red eyes and the remnants of tears on his face. "Will you not be satisfied until I've hugged you?"

"You'll only find out once I've gotten one. Until then, I am an enigma."

Adrian really does laugh then, quietly, carefully, like his lungs will shatter if he expresses too much joy. "And here I thought I was the dramatic one…"

"That spot is and always has been reserved for me, love. Or had you forgotten?"

And just like that, all the progress seems to fall away. The baby steps they'd taken towards normalcy, conversation, everything halts and Lyudmil's heart  _ aches _ . "It has been… almost two years now…"

Lyudmil gulps, turning his head back to the ceiling, not knowing what to say. He left because he wasn't stupid enough to stay. He stayed away because he didn't yet have a death wish. He came back because he got too worried, because his resolve crumbled and he didn't care if the hoards took him- 

Not that he would ever be daft enough to tell Adrian he started searching for him well before the news of Dracula's death was even known to him. Sure, Dracula was already dead by the time Lyudmil began his search, he just didn't  _ know  _ that. He got lucky, finding out in Gresit of all places that the strife was over, that he could seek his friend out in relative safety. It was pure luck that everything happened the way it did, but a small part of Lyudmil wishes it was different. He wishes he came back sooner, that he somehow sought his friend out earlier, that he'd worked up the courage before everything could spiral so far out of control.

But Adrian must not begrudge him for it, not when he slips his hand in Lyudmil's and the two spend time just staring, marveling at the stone ceiling the way one would the stars. "I missed you," Adrian rasps. "It's been but months for me, I slumbered for the better part of a year, and yet in that short time I still… missed you…"

Lyudmil's heart jumps, and the sweat on his hands is only masked by the sweat on Adrian's own. "I missed you too," Lyudmil mumbles. "And I promise I'm not just saying that because you can cook like no other." 

Adrian gifts Lyudmil with beautiful, genuine laughter, and it nearly reduces him to tears.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kudos and comments! I really appreciate the support. 
> 
> I'm inching towards finals so do be warned that updates on this will probably be pretty slow from here on out. I hate college but I gotta focus cause that shit is expensive, you know how it is.

Mr. Tepes is an odd man.

When Lyudmil is first introduced to him, he does not grumble or ignore him. He speaks softly to him, to Adrian proudly declaring that he's made a new friend. There are no rolling eyes, no scoffs, there's no dismissal, he just greets Lyudmil with an austere demeanor, holding out his hand and shaking Lyudmil's own once he tentatively reaches forward. Adults don't shake the hands of children, that's not how it's supposed to work, but Mr. Tepes is not a normal adult, he can't be. Lyudmil has never seen an adult so tall, with eyes a color like that, with skin so pale and smooth. He thinks maybe he's befriended a prince, that the man he claims as his father before them must be a king, a noble, a man too regal to ever see the sun. 

His demeanor isn't unkind, but there's an uncanny set to his broad shoulders and ethereal face. Lyudmil feels so _small_ compared to Mr. Tepes- which should go as no surprise considering just how young Lyudmil is. It's a different kind of disparity, one that has nothing to do with height or age or being but more to do with spirit, with the enormity of that man's soul. Lyudmil finds he cannot put it into words.

Mr. Tepes smiles small, but he still smiles. He isn't like Lyudmil's father, a man who would sooner cut off his left toe than offer his kin a scrap of emotional validation. He finds himself jealous almost immediately, he cannot help it. 

Adrian has two sweet parents, and they have a great big house, full of many wonderful things; they are kind, kinder than anybody Lyudmil's ever known in his life. When they invite him to stay the night, they offer him a guest bedroom of his own, they offer soft bedding and honeyed words and reassurance that his presence isn't burdensome. He and Adrian elect to sleep in the same room anyways, not wanting to be apart for even a moment. They're giddy, bubbling with excitement over dinner, over the prospect of falling asleep together under the neatly painted stars and faux, cobalt blue sky of Adrian's ceiling. 

The experience is odd just as Mr Tepes is odd, because he doesn't yell when Lyudmil crashes into him later that night, on the hunt for a glass of water. There are no blows exchanged, there's not even a hint of agitation in his being. Lyudmil is asked in hushed tones if _he_ is okay, if _he_ needs help, even though it was him who slammed into his new best friend's dad. Trembling gets him a gentle hand on his shoulder, it gets him a ten minute detour to a kitchen he never would have found on his own. Adrian's father is pouring water for him and ushering him back to bed with the soft rumble of his voice and the reassurance that he can always take whatever he needs- it's more than he knows how to handle. 

The two walk on through gilded halls, Mr. Tepes says nothing, Lyudmil holds back his deluge of questions. He wants to know why this house is so big, so labyrinthine, so scary; he wants to ask why this house isn't a house at all, but a palace, one chock full of oddities that make Lyudmil's little head spin. But he knows children are meant to be seen, not heard, and that to ask anything more of the man letting him sleep in his palace would be undeniably, terribly rude. Mr. Tepes guides him back into Adrian's room, the one bigger than the first floor of Lyudmil's entire house. "Good night," he says, closing the door softly, padding back down the hallway as Lyudmil slinks back to bed.

Toys spilling out of a carved box greet him first, with their little glass eyes winking at him from dense faux fur. Lyudmil has never seen toys so well put together, so worn with love yet durable. He stumbles in, trying not to step on them, clamoring back over to Adrian's cushy bed. Adrian perks up just in time to see Lyudmil come over, and he's worried himself into a tight little ball on the bed. Lyudmil comes forward, and he's pulled into a hug of blankets and strong little eight year old arms. 

His friend is strong, bizarrely so, but Lyudmil is too enamoured with companionship to question or judge those oddities. "I thought he was going to make you leave," Adrian mumbles. He's shaking, clutching at his friend in frantic need, or something like adrenalin. "I'm glad he didn't…" he whispers.

Confusion ripples through him, with hurt tangled alongside it. Why would Mr. Tepes make him leave? Miss Lisa told him he was welcome, Mr. Tepes seemed to welcome him too, had Lyudmil missed a key detail? He doesn't know, but he refuses to let Adrian shake with worry any longer. He wraps his arms loosely around Adrian, hugging him back with much less force. "Me too!" Lyudmil is smiling, poking the cheek of his downtrodden friend. "I wouldn't let him kick me out without saying goodbye anyway! You'll have to try harder if you wanna get rid a' me!" 

Adrian whimpers, pulling his friend to him like one would a stuffed animal, a comfort object. "I won't try at all then, I don't want you to go!"

Lyudmil's chest fills with a bizarre feeling, when the two untangle from one another to snuggle under the comforter, to gaze at the stairs etched carefully into Adrian's ceiling. "... Me neither…"

-

The first night is hard.

Adrian accepts Lyudmil, as he always has and seemingly always will. He opens his home, his ruined fortress of memories, to Lyudmil with no further hesitation. Yet he won't rise from the floor. He's checked himself out, gone and wandered away from pretending to be polite company. Raw and tired and empty, he bares the parts of himself most pressing to Lyudmil, who takes it all in stride.

"Leave me here to die," Adrian rasps into the carpet. His tone is flat, and Lyudmil can tell he's trying to be humorous, but he wonders if it's really only a joke. "Just let me lay on the floor, come find me later after I've starved to death." 

Lyudmil kicks him gently, the tip of his leather boot knocks against Adrian's shin as he snorts at the warranted melodrama. "Hm. No, I don't think I will. You're going to have company on this floor whether you like it or not," he says, only half kidding. "If you starve so will I," he shrugs, staring at the ceiling.

"Oh please!" Adrian grouses. "You won't starve, you'll nap!"

"Be that as it may, I will still be here for you, on this disgusting floor- when was it cleaned last?" Lyudmil blurts out before deciding not to think about it. Bad comes to worse, he'll bathe later. If he's lucky, he can convince Adrian to do the same and wash away the grime that is subtly building on his beautiful hair and his tear stained face. "Never mind- you get my point. You'll just have to cope with all my complaining and snoring as I starve and waste away to nothing waiting for you to give me my damn hug!" There's a little bout of laughter from both of them, one giddy and sweet that Lyudmil warms up from. It is truly freezing in this part of the castle, and he knows not if that's because of the damage it has sustained or simply the weather. 

"I'm unpleasant to hug," Adrian mumbles. "Once you told me it was like holding a sack of gourds-"

"That was _ages_ ago! And it's only because you lean on people when you hug them, and you're so _gangly_ -" 

"I think you'll find that I'm no longer so, thank you very much."

"Well how am I to know? You've subjected yourself isolation on that hideous carpet."

"Oh so you've the pedigree to judge my interior design? I didn't realize that authority came standard with every farm boy's upbringing."

" _Your_ interior design? We both know you've not the means to furnish this place, stake no claim to the carpets which clash with the curtains and the stone which is simply the worst shade of gray." 

Adrian _chortles_ , gifting Lyudmil a smile when he turns his head and tucks his hair back, no longer letting it obscure his face. "You've always got something to say, don't you?"

Lyudmil reaches forward then, confident that his playful demeanor will be well received. He pokes Adrian's cheek gently, grinning when he indignantly scrunches up his face. "You like that about me," he says.

Adrian's face gets wistful, reminiscent. "... You keep up with me," he says, catching Lyudmil's hand before he can pull it away. He presses the hand to his cheek, reverent and sweet, so very gentle now with strength he can finally control. Lyudmil catches sight of a new scar across the back on Adrian's wrist, one ugly and jagged and large- he startles but he says nothing. He knows better.

"You challenge me, keep me on my toes..." Lyudmil echoes, cupping Adrian's cheek in his hand a second later.

The two are quiet then, looking at one another, taking in the details they didn't think to absorb sooner. Adrian looks drained, his ethereal beauty is damped by his apparent lack of self care, his inability to pick up the shards of his life by himself. There is not a speck of judgement in Lyudmil's eyes, for he knows the kind of melancholy affecting him all too well. Adrian reaches forward to trace the lines of Lyudmil's face, painting it with the tip of his finger, memorizing, calming himself. He hasn't done that since they were twelve. 

Lyudmil's heart throbs with palpable pain. He misses those days, when life was simple and the biggest thing he had to worry about was trying to sneak out without waking up his father, nevermind the trek through the woods in pitch dark. He yearns for the days spent running through the woods, marching through the castle's library, making elaborate plans together that would never realistically pan out. The naivety, the innocence, he misses being shielded from hardship by a clever young woman and her inhuman husband who was smarter than any man before him, any man after. He longs for more moments like this, spent staring at the ceiling, and turning away to memorize Adrian's features as though any moment could very well be their last together.

When everything happened, and he and Adrian were separated, he felt so hopeless. Their final moments had come too soon, and they never saw it coming; at least, Lyudmil hadn't. In his head, Lisa Tepes was as immortal as her husband. She held such a presence, was such a serene being. The world was her oyster, she held the knowledge of eldritch beings, of creatures unkillable. Lyudmil had never pictured that one day she could die, that one day her kindness would mean nothing, and ignorance would overpower every good deed she'd ever done. He never imagined that anyone would be cruel enough, stupid enough to murder her. Even now, it doesn't feel real. He's come to terms with her death, at least he thinks he has. He knows she's dead, he's witnessed and felt first hand the destruction her death had wrought from the hands of a grieving man. 

But it doesn't _feel_ real yet, even though he cannot deny reality, it just won't add up in his head. Maybe it has yet to hit him- even after seeing all he has, maybe he refuses to believe she's gone. He still feels like she could come walking down the corridor at any moment, hips swaying to the tune of a song only she remembers, learned off black disks played by a horned machine, one of Dracula's constructs. He almost wishes Adrian was in this state of limbo with him, anything to keep him calm, anything to allow him reprieve from this terrible train of traumatic events thrust upon him by life. 

Adrian is frowning at the ceiling then, unable to look Lyudmil in the eye. "You cannot expect to make me feel better instantaneously, as though by magic. I am… not well. It is as you said. I'm not alright. Expecting me to just be okay- I cannot do that, not even for you..." 

Grief cannot disappear through magic. If it could, half of Wallachia would still be breathing, a good portion of the continent would still have their bowels tucked under their skin, and their flesh free of rot and inhuman bite marks. Lyudmil suspects Miss Lisa would still be alive, if magic were capable of keeping her so. "Well it's a good thing I don't carry that expectation, then," he says, with such finality and authority that Adrian does not bring it up again. 

It will be a long road, for both of them. The first step they take is pulling one another up off the floor and walking away from Adrian's childhood bedroom, hearts heavy and steps light on a castle built for ghosts. Adrian lets himself be helped from the floor, but he refuses Lyudmil's contact from there. 

It's bittersweet to see the kitchen again. A thin layer of dust has settled over everything- save a small portion of the counter, which Lyudmil can tell has been used frequently. He's relieved to know that Adrian has been feeding himself at the very least, though he prays those meals aren't irregular, or sparse. Where once herbs and gloves of garlic hung from the ceiling, there is nothing now, likely cleared away to prevent mold and decay.

Adrian is padding over to the stove, a cast iron affair with a fire already fueling its belly. "You caught me in the middle of dinner," he explains, calmly unwrapping a large dish from a white towel and opening the oven with his bare hands. Lyudmil does not see what's in it. He can smell it though, not a second later as the food begins to cook. It's something fragrant, he cannot place what it is.

"I don't suppose you'd mind if I join you?" Lyudmil is pulling out a chair, sliding into it before he even gets an answer. His feet are killing him, aching at the heels and the toes with blisters and what might even be frostbite. These complaints go unspoken. The oven warms the room and Lyudmil knows his pains will be soothed in no time at all, as long as he has patience. Adrian grins at him before sitting down too, at the head of the table. 

Something across the room catches Lyudmil's eye- a set of dolls completely out of place in this room. He quirks a brow and stands, makes his way over, ignoring the little noise that Adrian makes. It's an embarrassed squeak, one that's followed by Adrian standing to halt Lyudmil. "Don't look at those," he asks, a careful hand on Lyudmil's shoulder. "Please, it's… I don't want to think about them right now." 

And curiosity negs at him, but he obeys, sitting back down, trying not to smile at the little look of embarrassment and indignation on Adrian's face. It would be cute if he wasn't so upset- oh god, that's an odd thought to have. Lyudmil tucks it away and promises to never think those words again. He instead observes the dolls from a distance. They're crude, but they have a charm about them, they're obviously handmade, pulled together with care. He's seen that shade of blue somewhere, on travelers as strange and frantic as he. Speakers, he recalls; they all had tales to tell, a great many things to say. Excellent storytellers as far as Lyudmil's concerned. 

He owes speakers a great deal- he never would have found this place without them.

Adrian is pouring wine then, seemingly from nowhere he's produced a bottle. Lyudmil catches sight of other, emptied bottles around the room. His concern skyrockets, but he says nothing. Adrian is incapable of getting drunk, of throwing himself down the bottle, but it's still so worrisome.

He turns his attention back to the dolls. He notes the little whip of braided cord attached to the second one's cloth hip and he lights up in recognition. "They're your compatriots, aren't they?" 

Adrian nearly drops the bottle in an attempt to pour his own glass. He's quiet, tongue tangled by the cat as he sets the bottle down and avoids Lyudmil's eyes. Eventually a sigh escapes him, and he nods. "... Yes… it's pathetic, I know."

"It is… odd, but I don't think it's pathetic. You're _coping_. And we all cope in odd ways… where… where are they now?" 

"Long gone," Adrian snaps. "I wouldn't know where they are now, I just know they're not here. They left, they're traveling together now-" Adrian chokes up a bit, his eyes have gone glassy and Lyudmil can feel a crying fit on the rise. 

He welcomes it.

"It's okay to let yourself cry-"

"All I've done is cry. I should be done crying by now." Adrian is no closer to stopping the water works, it only gets worse when Lyudmil carefully takes his hand. It's like a deluge triggered by the prospect of comfort- tears pour from Adrian's eyes, but he's not crying. His face is completely passive, save the fat tears gushing out of his eyes- he's blank and bored with these emotions, he doesn't react to the state of his face, not yet. 

"Says who?" Lyudmil wraps both his hands around Adrian's, who trembles like a leaf despite his indifferent face. 

"I beg your pardon?" He perks up, tilting his head and drilling a thousand yard stare into Lyudmil's face.

"Who says you should be done crying by now? I assure you, they are a fool."

Adrian sneers then, pulling his hands out from under Lyudmil's, throwing them into his lap. Lyudmil has seen Adrian weep before, but this feels wrong, to be poking at his friend when he's so _raw._ "I've already cried so much for them, for my family-" Adrian wipes at his eyes, sniffs, a flash of genuine melancholy catches on his face but it's gone as soon as it's there.

Adrian is tense, wound up tight. He's not just sad, Lyudmil can tell he's ready to lash out, ready to cry and sob and scream. Lyudmil doesn't mean to push him there when he speaks again. "And you'll cry some more if you need to, we'll speak no more of it. It's alright to express grief-" the table is compacted by a fist, glasses and cutlery bounce with the force of it, Lyudmil jumps in shock. 

" _It's not just the grief!_ " Adrian yelps, taking his hand back, clutching his own arms.

Lyudmils speaks slow, soft, patient, not knowing what he'll see next, unsure what to say. It's hard to talk through this, hard to help someone he knows but knows he cannot reach. He walks around the table, coming close and offering a hug to Adrian that he believes will go unused. He's shocked to see Adrian stand, to feel Adrian wrap around him instinctively. "Then what is it, help me understand-" he whispers, he does not finish.

"It's everything! Everything! Th-the murder, the loss, the loneliness- they- they left me!" Sharp nails dig into Lyudmil's back, his shoulders creek with the force of Adrian's hold on him. "They left me-" he weeps, "I believed our time meant something and I was a fool-!"

"You are not a fool-"

" _I was_ ! I was foolish and, so desperate after I lo-lost them," Adrian's breath hitches and hikes, his sobs a release of panic and stress and sorrow. "I let the other two i-in after because I was so- so-" Lyudmil slides his hand over the curve of Adrian's neck, brings a hand to the back of his head in a gentle motion. He drags down a sobbing face to the crook of his neck, pressing softly a kiss to a crown of golden hair. Lyudmil knows better than to ask who _they_ are, who had the audacity to leave him so helpless, so obviously hurt. That Scholar, that Hunter, he's never met them, doesn't know their names, but he hates them. He just holds tight to the broad but crumpled form of his old friend, and he swears that he will never, ever forgive them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I plan on including a lot more pieces of their youth as time goes on, hopefully it goes well! I have no idea what I'm doing.


	3. Chapter 3

They fall into bed together, used to sharing space, sharing reprieve, sharing thoughts. Adrian won't stop trembling, though he tries and tries to still his limbs as Lyudmil slips under the covers mere feet away from him. It's a big bed- one unfamiliar and stiff, in a room coated in dust that is just barely tolerable; Lyudmil finds he hates it, or he would at the very least if not for Adrian by his side. The two don't touch, with Lydumil still feeling out their new boundaries widened by time, and Adrian building a wall between them slowly, bracing for the impact of further hurt. 

Lyudmil won't hurt him on purpose, if he's to drive a knife into the back of his beloved, he will do so accidentally. 

"I cannot stop thinking about how things could've been different had they just taken me with them," Adrian says after minutes of silence, of gazing at a ceiling devoid of hand painted constellations. Lyudmil bites his lip, silent, knowing Adrian has more to say. He will give him room to speak his truth, to grieve the loss of a fledgling connection. "I don't want this," Adrian mumbles. "This place, this tomb… the life of a curator is not one I've longed for, this loneliness is killing me," Adrian's throat is scratchy, it shakes with gravel whipped up with tears that threaten to cascade. They never come, and Lyudmil can tell they're barely being held at bay. 

He wants to soothe them away, to draw his friend close and promise him his life, promise him that he doesn't need to be alone anymore. But he knows insecurity is not so easily thwarted, he knows that Adrian thinks he will leave one day, abandon his friend for the plague dusted, flea covered peasants that make up this backwater country. There is nothing to be said, so Lyudmil will show him instead, he will stay in this miserable labyrinth for as long as it takes.

"No one would want this," Lyudmil replies, affirming Adrian's words, validating his feelings. This life is an unkind one, and he wants desperately for Adrian to understand that his damnation to it can and should be resented if he so pleases. 

"You're right. So, why did they think I did? What was it that they saw in me- what was so wrong with me that they assumed I would be content this way… or… did they… did they not care? Did they wish to simply wash their hands of me? Was I not good enough, did they not enjoy my company?" Adrian's voice hitches and something inside Lyudmil snaps. The idea that anyone could find no value in Adrian is ridiculous to Lyudmil- the man is a walking wonder, a creature molded from the sweetest things, made of honesty and kindness and compassion- Lyudmil's reverence for him knows no bounds. He wonders why the speaker and the hunter couldn't see it, or if maybe they did. Light does not attract all things, after all, sometimes it drives out those that cannot survive its radiance; much like night creatures, much like vermin, much like them.

Lyudmil bites the inside of his cheek, and is not alarmed when blood slowly drips onto his tongue. On this he cannot be silent. "You could spend the rest of your life wondering, and never know, Adrian," he takes a deep breath. Staying calm has never been such a challenge, with his back pressed into firm bedding and the sight of tears building at the corner of Adrian's eyes. Never before has he been so… so  _ agitated. _ "You can let yourself do that, lay awake every night, trying desperately to understand, or you could accept the fact that they don't deserve your thoughts." 

Adrian's response is immediate, dramatic. He shoots out of bed, looking at Lyudmil as though  _ he's _ the one who murdered a pair of intruders less than a fortnight ago. "Don't say such a thing!" Adrian snaps back. "I think of them in high regard, I thought of them as friends!" It makes sense that Adrian wants to understand, Lyudmil would too, but that doesn't settle the fact that thinking about so many ifs and maybes and sos will do nothing but dig him a deeper grave. Lyudmil should have said that, but nicer. 

For now, he's incapable of being anything but blunt, direct. 

"Be that as it may, they are terrible friends." Lyudmil replies, completely deadpan. He's right, he knows he's right. They left Adrian- somebody who lost his family in the span of barely a month- one murdered by the ignorance of man and one killed by his own two hands. They left him, knowing he experienced these things back to back because of his one years slumber. They abandoned someone who gave everything for their cause- Adrian didn't  _ have _ to help them. He very well could have sat by in silence, watching with weary eyes and a heavy heart as Dracula tore the world apart for his Lady Wife, Adrian's Queen Mother. 

Lyudmil thinks, with such a bitter heart, that Adrian gave up so much for them. He killed his father because he knew it was the right thing to do, likely not because he even cares for mankind, the being that consumes and hates. That hunter, that scholar, they were so blessed, given a rare gift, one unwanted. 

"Take it back," Adrian growls.

Lyudmil is sent reeling- he feels but does not process Adrian's fist balled at the collar of his nightshirt, dragging him closer, threatening him. Where once the night between them was tense, now it has grown explosive- Adrian wouldn't hurt him. Adrian won't hurt him, but Lyudmil starts to sweat regardless as he carefully explains himself. "I'm not saying I'm any better than them!" He grits out, managing to smooth out his voice as Adrian's hold loosens. "Love, I left when you needed me, instead of searching for you, instead trying to help you with your father, with your mother, I fled the country-" He says, knowing full well that Adrian made him. He still feels guilty, though it was Adrian who found him after the ashes settled and speakers swept them up with careful hands, after the crowds left and the church thought faithfully that god would kick the remains away with the wind. Lyudmil happened upon them, just as Adrian happened upon him, and begged him with his whole heart to leave. He wasn't confident in his ability to stop his father.

Lyudmil thinks of the destruction- the ruined halls of this sepulcher, and he cannot blame him.

" _ At my behest- _ !" Both of Adrian's hands clutch at Lyudmil's shirt, this time drawing him in with concern, with frustration. Lyudmil only brings his hands up to cover Adrian's shaking ones.

When he speaks, he does it carefully, calmly, with pois, as though he's comforting a child. "It matters not, now, I abandoned you just as they did. All of us… we've wronged you. It's okay to be angry with them, Adrian… it's okay to be angry with me. They are terrible friends, and so am I."

They're both silent then, sitting up in bed clutching at each other; the wind whistling through gilded, empty halls is the only voice that dares speak over them. Lyudmil can see it vaguely in Adrian's eyes illuminated by moonbeams, by the grace of the sky. This bottomless melancholy, this guilt and this indecision and this thing, teetering on the edge of acceptance. Lyudmil pushes him no further, he only waits for those hands to unclench, to twine with his own in a chaste gesture, one that radiates comfort as Adrian's skin radiates cold. "I… I can't be angry at you. For as much support as I needed, it wouldn't have been fair to ask anything of you…" Adrian flops back down into bed, his hair billowing out around him, forming a halo that Lyudmil wants to thread his fingers through. Oh how he desires to object, to say that Adrian could ask him for the world and Lyudmil would either give it to him or die trying. Adrian moves on before Lyudmil can embarrass himself. "And them… they had little obligation to help me, to stay with me, to bring me with them… I can't be mad at them either." Lyudmil aches. He hates them. He loathes how little Adrian thinks of himself, how he sincerely believes he doesn't deserve not only kindness, but simple common courtesy. 

Lyudmil wasn't left behind when mourning his parents. Adrian shouldn't have been left behind when mourning his.

But when Lyudmil slowly drifts back down, his head making contact with the pillow, he sees the expression on Adrian's face, and cannot voice his malice. They are gone now, and they are terrible, but Adrian can forgive them their faults, and it's so obvious that he  _ loves _ them. Lyudmil won't say another word on it. "... Then you don't have to be," he sighs. He can understand forgiving himself, when Adrian instructed him to leave. He wonders if maybe he told them to leave too, to go chasing their dreams while he spent his nights in this gilded cage, this ivory coffin, this sarcophagus. Did he wish them away with a smile? Did he bury feelings for the sake of their futures? Lyudmil knows better than to ask. He just looks up at the canopy, the soft, sheer fabric around them, the snippets of the ceiling beyond. Adrian's earlier words clang around in his head, and he refuses to leave them unattended. "I… I doubt they assumed you would be content with this life due to some sort of character flaw. I don't think they wanted to be rid of you, either."

"What makes you so sure?" Adrian snaps back, voice heavy with sleep, his eyes slipping closed. It's a mystery whether or not this conversation will even be remembered, come morning.

"They left you a chunk of themselves," Lyudmil replies quickly. He loathes them, oh how he  _ loathes _ them and the damage they've done, but he won't belittle and ruin what few connections Adrian has made. For all his anger towards them, he will not actively pitt his friend against their actions. He is here to soothe, to calm, to affirm. He won't tear apart a tentative connection, despite his growing hatred of the speaker and the hunter. "That hold, it's important to the hunter. He'll return for it one day, maybe when he's old and grey or maybe a month from now, he will come back. Where he goes, the speaker girl follows. Had they wished to never see you again, they would have said nothing of it, and given you no claim to something they will one day pass down." 

"I did not… think about that…"

"That's precisely why I told you. You're so… don't take this the wrong way, but you're so stuck in your own head, it's hard for you to see the big picture…" Melancholy does that to a person, it blows small things out of proportion, makes you forget that you've got others to fall back on. Lyudmil continues, smiling softly at his friend's scrunched up face. "Adrian, you are loved. They care about you, in some way they must. I care about you, your parents cared about you. This country is grateful for your deeds, you've done insurmountable good. You are cared for, even in small ways. They wish to see you again as you do them, do  _ not _ doubt that receiving that hold was an act of care, a promise." 

"You don't know that, you can't promise that,  _ you don't know that _ ." Adrian looks as though he regrets telling Lyudmil about the hold at all, face distraught and eyes closed, he flips over, facing away from Lyudmil.

"Oh but I do." Lyudmil laughs, knowing his friend is jarred, unused to praise. "I know you are loved, if not by them, by me. By your late parents. By all the little people who continue to breathe because of your selflessness. God, Adrian I beg of you, give yourself some credit!" 

"I… I don't know how… if I'm so- so good, why do I feel so worthless?" Lyudmil hears  _ sniffling _ . It's with a tentative hand that he reaches out, gently touching Adrian's back before siding an arm around him. They haven't done this since they were kids- curling up by one another,  _ spooning _ -

"Because you have worth you cannot see, but trust me,  _ trust me _ , it's there. I would never lie to you," Lyudmil says, feeling Adrian go tense, then calm, then tense, before finally deflating, finally at peace or maybe resigned. 

"Maybe not intentionally, but perhaps on accident. Maybe you cannot see the flaws Trevor and Sypha could- you're blinded by nostalgia! By that which is a dirty liar who casts everything through a lense of rose-" And finally Lyudmil has names by which to attach hatred- Trevor and Sypha, the fools who threw away the sun in search of thrills, unappreciative and foolish. Perhaps one day his distaste towards them will ebb, but for now it flows and bumps to the beat of his raging heart.

"Call me a liar and i will push you out of this bed, Adrian!" Lyudmil hisses into the back of Adrian's neck, into his hair which is quickly suffocating him.

Adrian can't help but chuff. "I'm having a fit and you decide to threaten me?"

"How else does one react to such slander?"

A laugh. "You really  _ are _ the dramatic one." 

"Maybe so, but I take pride in it. I like to believe it makes me authentic," Lyudmil yawns.

"Hm. Your authentic self could use some rest."

"Maybe so," Lyudmil smiles. "You're one to talk…" 

The atmosphere settles, their soft breathing undeterred by the cacophony of silence through the castle. Eventually, Adrian works up the courage to quietly call out to him. "... Lyuddy?" Adrian whispers, the old nickname makes him  _ melt. _

"Hm?"

"I bet I can fall asleep faster than you," he claims, playful and sincere, reminiscent of when they used to play this silly game.

Lyudmil grins into Adrian's shoulder. "You're on."

-

Lyudmil is an observant child, as most children are. He's been taught from an early age that silent children are smart children, and invisible children are lucky ones. As such, he focuses on the world around him, analyzing everything to make up for his lack of presence, his meek nature. 

He wonders if other children would have noticed it faster, or if they would have never seen it at all, the way Adrian is odder than most others. His face is uncanny, beautiful and vivacious with youth but somehow weirdly mature, weirdly serene. The color of his eyes and the set of his fanged jaw, it should be alarming and send Lyudmil running, for everyone knows the stories of creatures fitting that visage. And yet, here he is, sitting plucking flowers from a hill top, weaving them into Adrian's hair with deft fingers. 

He cannot imagine Adrian would ever hurt him, even though he's… odd. Even though he can't be human. Lyudmil doesn't see it as a flaw, because his inhumanity does nothing to detract from how radiant he is.

They are but kids, safely tucked away in the glow of endless childhood summers, of warmth.

One day, he will know better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case it wasn't clear, or in case you were curious: Lyudmil calls Alucard Adrian in this fic because they grew up together, and I wrote this under the assumption that Lyudmil probably wouldn't want to define Alucard by his relationship with his father, the same way Lisa seemingly didn't want to. It's just a little headcanon of mine!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I know better now," Adrian mumbles against his back. "You're delicate."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life is literally insane for me right now, so if there are some egregious grammar or spelling mistakes this chapter, you know why.

Lyudmil wakes up to sunlight, to the image of Adrian curled in on himself, wrapped up in most of the blankets. The hog that he is, Lyudmil can't be angry with him, not when his face looks peaceful for once, not when his limbs are finally free of tremors and sweat. 

He slips out of bed almost silently, unbuttoning his nightgown in careful motions, certain that even the slightest noise could rouse his friend, could break the little bubble of calm he's erected around himself. Dawn is a familiar companion, Lyudmil is used to waking with it, but he will not subject his friend to it with him. Adrian has never been a morning person, not really. 

He's pinning his trousers and lacing his shoes and cinching his shirt with haste, determined to see for himself how dilapidated the castle is these days. Earlier was just a taste, a small bite of Adrian's declining environment, he's sure. 

All he leaves behind is his cloak, trying to make it obvious that he'll be back, should Adrian get up earlier than expected. 

He thinks of last night and can feel a suffocating empathy. To contemplate how wanted you are, to question the love others have for you, he remembers that feeling all too well.

Somebody has melted the clocktower- that's what they called it as children, the towering rooms of cogs and switches of brass and gold. It's like someone's taken water to a drying painting, the entire room is set in a melting, dripping mess. Lyudmil's heart beats so fast, thumps like the hooves of a horse so deep and so quick and so painful- what _happened_ here. What melted a construct so grand and complex, and how on God's green earth did this happen-

He wonders if this is _their_ fault too, the Speaker and the Hunter. Like it wasn't enough to kill Dracula, they had to _pour_ salt into the wound and rub it in, damaging the only home Adrian has ever known. It's like seeing an unwrapped burn, looking at this room- he thinks that if the castle could, it would weep. Miss Lisa explained this to him once, before she was taken from them too soon, that this palace is a living, breathing being in it's own right. It feels. Lyudmil feels for it. 

Whether or not they can ever get it working again is a mystery, and, unfortunately, not his top priority. 

The drooping remains of ancient machinery leave his field of vision but never his mind. He just makes his way to the cellar, mourning the vivacity that used to pump through this place. It was always so warm in his youth, so welcoming, now he feels as though this place is a mausoleum, and he is expressly not supposed to be here. 

The cellar is uninviting, not to mention a mess. Bottle shards line every inch of the floor, while the thin outlines of dried stains have taken up residence on the unwashed stone. Lyudmil is shocked to not find rats considering the poor state of the place- he thinks he can see blood coagulating in one corner of the room, coated in flies. 

He's been exploring on his own for minutes and already he has had enough. 

He means to go back to the bedroom, to wake Adrian, to spend the quiet hours of the morning with him in relative comfort, but he gets sidetracked. 

The corpses call to him.

Perhaps it's morbid curiosity that gets to him, perhaps it's his inability to mind his own business, whatever the reason, he cannot keep their horrifying visage from his mind. In terms of housekeeping, the removal of those corpses is priority number one. They're more than a mess though, they're a symbol of Adrian's decline, those corpses are silent enablers. The guilt they bring, it must make Adrian believe his self loathing is justified, and Lyudmil cannot stand for that.

The morning wind is harsh, cold, it cuts through his thin shirt with little remorse for the gooseflesh it brings upon his skin. Watching the sun rise in the presence of the bodies is not pleasant. Lyudmil wants to know so deeply what it is they did- for he knows their fate is not unwarranted, it can't be. Adrian is too pure a being to have done this unprovoked. 

He must remind himself of that as he makes his way back through the castle.

-

Miss Lisa gives them very clear instructions, speaking over the hissing hearth and gargling porridge occupying the other half of the kitchen. Adrian silently mouths her words and sways his hips and wags his finger- playful and mocking while his mother's back is turned, simply for the sake of Lyudmil's amusement. Imitating her, reciting the speech they've heard every winter since they were little- even littler than they are now. The dissertation on winter's fangs, the season's danger. Lyudmil's heard it all too many times from Miss Lisa, his own mother; it's in his nature now to spot thin ice and risky slopes, and tracks too big to ignore. But he sits through the lecture, and so does Adrian, even if they make faces and crack little jokes just for the two of them and copy the woman kind enough to worry, sweet enough to care. 

When they're waddling out of the castle in snow shoes, baked potatoes in their pockets, arms linked together, they will not think twice about danger, not when they have each other. It's the dawn after a fresh snowstorm, when the world is cloaked in a softer, sweeter flesh after a midnight of howling winds. Nothing can go wrong, nothing does. 

"Where do you suppose all the animals go, this time of year?" Lyudmil sinks into a throne of snow- a shrub compacted by winter that just barely holds the shape of a chair. He can only think of the lack of birds and bugs and squirrels, so used to seeing hoards of them in the spring. For all the years he's lived, he's never known what happens to the world around him in the months of ice and slush, too sheltered, too alone. His parents don't know, he knows better than to ask the neighbors which he cannot bring himself to care for, much less love as his pastor demands. His neighbors give his mother dirty looks, they do not speak to him, to his father; they make it impossible to _love thy neighbor_ , to show compassion at all. Thus, he has no one to ask. He doubts anyone in town would know anyway.

But Adrian always knows. He's always so clever, so smart, just like his mum, who knows how bodies are built, and his father, who talks about things like _chemicals_ , and _electricity_. When he asks Adrian questions, he isn't made to feel dumb, he's not punished for speaking up, for being curious about the world God supposedly constructed himself. He would think the church would be more supportive of his curiosity for that reason, for wanting to understand the machinations of God's pride and joy, his constructs. 

He wonders if God would answer his questions the same way as Adrian does; he wonders if there is a God. 

"Caves, burrows. Some migrate you know!" Adrian calls out, dragging a toboggan of snow closer and closer to the forest's edge, their private hideout. They pledged the night before to build a castle of their own- of snow and ice like the people up north. Mr. Tepes said it's called an _igloo_.

It's with a furrowed brow that Lyudmil tries to stand and escape from his quickly sinking snow throne, trying to find his footing in snowshoes a couple sizes too big for him. "Migrate?" He asks. "What does it mean to migrate?"

"It means they move! From one place to another, they all move at once. Lots of avian species do that," Adrian grunts, not with effort but acknowledgement, as Lyudmil has jumped onto the back of the toboggan. 

"Avian?" He questions further, packing the snow into bricks while Adrian keeps walking. Barely phased by the added weight, he moves as though he's pulling nothing. The two eventually settle near a tree- their favorite tree- and Adrian flops down on the toboggan next to him, leaning against him slightly as he also presses snow into shapes.

"Birds!" Adrian giggles, packing snow into a lopsided brick, explaining everything to Lyudmil with patience, pois, never once condescending to him, never once scoffing at him for knowing nothing of the world he's often cut off from. "Geese an' ducks an' swallows an' songbirds- they leave and come back when winter's through!" Adrian recites these words like a song, humming a thought into the air as he squishes snow between his fingers, unaffected by the cold.

"Well- that's lovely but, where do they go? Who's supposed to sing and fly and hop while they're gone?" Lyudmil bumps into Adrian, who just grins and eventually throws his lumpy brick, already giving up, laying back down in the snow.

But Adrian can't stop giggling then, breathless as he explains that they go somewhere warmer. He then gets deadly serious, sitting up from the snowbank to say: "We could fly, if we wanted to." 

And that's how the two of them spend the rest of the day- dragging the toboggan up the closest hill they can find and sledding down it what feels like hundreds of times. They certainly do fly, hitting patches of ice that send them into the air before throwing them back down the hill at twice the speed. Adrian drags the sled back up almost every time, demanding Lyudmil hop on for the ride and getting excited every time they make the trek back up. Once or twice, Lyudmil tries to do the same for Adrian, though he gets tired so fast he feels ashamed.

"It's okay," is all Adrian says. "You tried, it makes me really happy that you tried!" 

The whole morning, a majority of the afternoon, it's spent just rolling through the snow, sledding, throwing snowballs after hours of meticulously shaping them. And when they get back, just hours before sunset- Lyudmil's fingers and lips are blue, his toes are numb, but he doesn't complain. He marches into the castle, grin wide to match Adrian's, only to startle and flinch when Miss Lisa greets them before looking suddenly very, very angry. 

Lyudmil doesn't understand what happens then, he barely processes the feeling of Mr. Tepes pulling him towards the hearth, and Miss Lisa ushering Adrian out of the room. Fearing he's done something wrong, he tries to apologize, but he's hushed as his frostbitten fingers are put close to the stove. "Where are your gloves?" Mr. Tepes asks, infinitely patient, calm but not in the same way that Lyudmil's own father usually is before flying off the handle. There is no calm before the storm. He's _gentle_ , bringing a chair over and sitting Lyudmil down, carefully prodding at his hands- Mr. Tepes's fingers are warmer than his own. This is unusual, and Lyudmil quickly realizes why there's a problem. 

But his tongue is caught in his mouth, he feels like a fool as his hands thaw out and gain a terrible tingly feeling to them. He left them outside- he didn't mean to do that, they weren't even technically his, they were one of Adrian's pairs. When he tries to scoot out of the chair to go back out and correct his mistake, he's scolded. "I'm not worried about the gloves, child, I'm worried about your hands. Did you not _wear_ gloves?" 

"I did-!" He says quickly. "To uhm- to start… I wore gloves to start. This morning, when we left…" 

"But you took them off."

A tentative nod. Mr. Tepes sighs. "I'm sorry," Lyudmil says quietly, with haste. He's getting uncomfortable, he tries to pull his hands away from the radiating warmth of the cast iron stove but Mr. Tepes doesn't let him. He forces Lyudmil to let his hands thaw, likely for his own good. 

"You needn't be. Why didn't you come in if you were cold?" He asks.

"Adrian wasn't cold," Lyudmil says after thinking for a minute. "And we… we were having fun, and I didn't want to make it stop so… I just dealt with it." Seeing Adrian so happy was worth the loss of feeling in his extremities- that smile, that face, it's always been enough to make him forget the tune of harshly whispered hymns and psalms shoved down his throat. When he focuses on Adrian, he cannot hear the world in his ears telling him he is not good enough, telling him he is bizarre for holding the company of someone so wonderful. When he is sequestered away in the castle, when he is sledding through the woods, he gets to feel like the child he is- he gets to be free of mediocrity, and expectation. He gets to be around someone who actually likes him, someone who wants him around. He's not sure most days if his parents even want him close. 

Considering he's already been gone for four days without them noticing or protesting, he doesn't think they do.

Once, when he was maybe six, he spent a full two weeks with Adrian, lying through his teeth to Mr. and Mrs. Tepes that he had permission from his parents to do so. His own mother and father never scolded him for this, having never even noticed he was gone. 

Mr. Tepes is quiet for a minute, before huffing and shaking his head. "I see. Do not do that again," he says with a great deal of finality. Lyudmil doesn't protest. "Adrian is… well, you know this by now, but he's different from you. You have needs he does not, and you should never hesitate to make those needs known. Compared to my boy, you're fragile. He would be upset if he were being kept comfortable at your expense. Do you understand?" 

No. Lyudmil doesn't understand. He was fine with staying outside- he would have been fine no matter what. But he doesn't want to be contrary, or rude, or make this situation worse, so he nods, and smiles. There's always been… an acute understanding in him that Adrian is different from him, that Mr. Tepes is different from everyone too, that Miss Lisa isn't different, but people sure treat her that way. He knows there's a certain _otherness_ about this family, they're alien to common people, strange and scary because they're smart, and selfless. No ordinary person would know what to do with all their knowledge, all their spirit. 

But it goes beyond that. Lyudmil is only eight but he knows, deep down, that something is wrong with the Tepes family- or, no, not wrong, just different. It's like they're made of something stronger, more flexible, more loving than everybody else. 

The holy men and women of his church tell stories of lycanthropy, demonic affiliation, vampirism. If it weren't for the Tepes family, Lyudmil would never believe these things existed. He knows better, staring into the blood red eyes of an eight foot tall man with nails the length of roofing spikes. Those preternatural oddities are real, and the Tepes family is a part of that world, and Lyudmil knows that sets him apart from them.

It's sad almost, that he feels safer amongst blood drinkers than he does his own parents, his neighbors, his fellow villagers. Mr. Tepes would never hurt him- he knows this intrinsically, but he certainly has the ability to.

No more words are exchanged between them. Eventually Miss Lisa comes in with an arm full of blankets and Adrian trailing behind her. She looks calmer now, and Adrian looks deliberately neutral.

Like a mother hen, she dotes on Lyudmil, tucking quilt after quilt around his shivering form. Adrian is helping him take off his boots- it's embarrassing to receive this kind of attention, truly, to have Adrian looking up at him apologetically through his lashes, to have Miss Lisa babbling at him about _frostbite_ and _hypothermia_ , words he only sort of understands. 

It's strange though- the warmth he feels towards this family, to these people who are not kind to him out of obligation, but because they like him. He is liked here. Loved, maybe, if not by Mr. Tepes or Miss Lisa, then by Adrian, who squeezes himself into the loveseat beside Lyudmil and does not leave. He wraps his thin limbs around Lyudmil, the fabric enveloping him, and he doesn't move until hours later, when Lyudmil insists that he's sweating.

That night, when the two of them are on the floor a couple feet from the fireplace, Lyudmil drifts off quickly despite the stone that does not yield, that is not comfy. Just before sleep takes him, he feels Adrian shuffling up close behind him, whispering to himself, or maybe to Lyudmil's sleep leaden body. "I know better now," Adrian mumbles against his back. "You're delicate," he whispers. "You're fragile, but you're my friend, and I have to look out for you…" A careful hand rests on Lyudmil's shoulder, feather light, _reverent_. "I'll protect you from now on, I promise…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really want to keep showing clips of their childhood together because I am an absolute sucker for wholesome little things like that, so I hope y'all don't mind. I won't do it all the time, because this fic is supposed to have like, plot, eventually? But for now, I thought this would be a cute little reprieve from the angst. Getting to write Alucard as a little kid is so fun too- from what little the show has shown us, he was seemingly a pretty jovial kid, which is sort of really a big difference from how Alucard is now.


	5. Chapter 5

Getting Adrian out of bed is… a challenge, to say the least. 

Lyudmil arrives already dressed and ready to start the day, while Adrian is still curled up in the bed despite the ceaseless sunlight through the curtains. How he can sleep like that, he doesn't know. Well, no- he does know, being nocturnal is a symptom of vampirism the same way being diurnal is a symptom of humanity- Adrian probably  _ prefers _ to sleep during the day. That being said, Lyudmil can't rightly tell if him sleeping in is just a result of his condition or stress or if today is simply a lazy day. Whatever the case may be, he feels as though he should wake Adrian up.

It's a relief to know Adrian hasn't been having trouble sleeping. Lyudmil feared for a time that maybe insomnia would catch up with him, but such has not happened. He slept fine next to Lyudmil last night, though he did make a habit of clinging to Lyudmil over the course of the night. His ribs are still a little sore about that. But it's an impossible call to make- Adrian is so peaceful for once, so saccharine; cuddled up with his bedding, with Lyudmil's cloak- when did he grab that?

"I know you're awake, you cheeky liar," Lyudmil grumbles then, knowing Adrian had to get out of bed to grab Lyudmil's shroud. 

" _ Five more minutes _ ," Adrian grumbles. "Some of us are mere mortals who cannot bring themselves to awaken with the ass crack of dawn." 

Lyudmil chuffs, padding over to the bed. "And yet here you are, awake, and still in bed." 

"Mh' not awake. You're talking to my comatose body…" Adrian rumbles, pulling the comforter over his head and slowly pulling Lyudmil's cloak with him.

"Very funny…" Lyudmil says, taking hold of a corner of the bedspread and yanking it as hard as he can. Nothing happens, and instead Lyudmil stumbles. Adrian's hold on the blankets is too strong. "Seriously?" He sighs. 

"Dead serious," Adrian affirms, voice muffled by the weight of blankets and fatigue. 

Perhaps Lyudmil will indulge him this once, reserving his concern for tomorrow should this happen again. Wanting to sleep in after an emotionally exhausting night makes perfect sense- but doing so every day is worrisome. He hasn't been back long enough to know what Adrian's sleep schedule looks like, and he's pink in the face thinking he might have gotten ahead of himself. Perhaps he's… just too worried? And now he's doting on Adrian? Yes, that makes sense. He should probably back off a little bit. 

"Fine. I'm going to go make breakfast then. Do y-  _ hey! _ " Adrian pops out of bed so fast that Lyudmil nearly has a heart attack. He calms right down when he realizes he's just being pulled into bed, and cuddled into like a pillow, but his heart doesn't seem to get the memo, and it beats faster than it rightfully should. 

"Don't bother. No food," Adrian grouses.

"What do you mean 'no food?'"

"I mean there's no food." 

"Wha- how- why?" 

Adrian is silent for a long time then, and Lyudmil thinks maybe he really could be asleep like this, his face pressed into Lyudmil's neck, his breathing even and soft. But a small sound and sudden fidgeting break that illusion. "I haven't… I haven't gone out much these past few days. Haven't had time to forage. It's not like I can waltz down to the market and pick something up."

There's a town less than a mile from where they are, but Lyudmil doesn't say that, because he knows that isn't what Adrian means. When he says he can't go, he literally means he can't go, not as a consequence of distance or availability, but by motivation. He can understand perfectly why Adrian has no desire to stroll on down to a settlement where people do not know him, where he might not feel safe, where people (because they are curious and nosy little things by nature) might ask questions. Namely, they might ask why on earth he's come from the direction of the ruined Belmont manor, or if he's the one who lives in the castle that touches the sky, that they more than likely have noticed by now. And questions aren't bad, but they do invite problems. They invite judgement, good or bad, and he doubts very much that Adrian wants to deal with that right now.

He opens his mouth, closes it. "We ate dinner last night."

"Mhmm. And that was the last of it." 

"Great. Wonderful," Lyudmil grumbles. "Can I get up please?" 

"... Do you have to?" 

"... I suppose not." 

"Good." 

Perhaps an hour passes between them, cozy and warm; Lyudmil feels for the better part of it like he's floating. Sleep is on the edge of his mind- he could go back into its embrace, but then he wouldn't be able to enjoy Adrian's embrace instead. Time has made their contact sweeter, and absence has made him yearn for this. He's missed Adrian, and though Lyudmil questions why he went from being unusually reserved to being so forthright, he doesn't dare bring it up for fear of losing the intimacy they've gained back. 

His mind drifts to the corpses.

Who are they, really? He knows they can't be Trevor and Sypha. Adrian had told him everything of his time with them already, about their escape from his life, their journey together that he seldom feels joy over, the hold they gifted to him. Adrian isn't as happy for them as he let on, a fact that he was more than happy to tell Lyudmil. 

No, the bodies out there can't be them, but they aren't the ones who left him the hold and a heart full of glass, who could they be? He doubts very much that they're anybody but nobodies, intruders maybe, graverobbers. Their deaths would consequently make sense- but the fact that they've been staked does not.

Lyudmil thinks about it so hard that he's gone stiff in Adrian's arms, something that certainly does not go unnoticed. Adrian just prods at him gently, in questioning, poking his ribs with very gentle, careful fingers.

"Who… who are they?" Lyudmil asks eventually, unable to contain himself, unable to scrub the image of distended jaws and bloodied limbs from his eyes.

"Who do you mean?" Adrian questions, hand stilling, settling on Lyudmil's hip. 

"You know who I mean," he fires back, voice not cold, merely curious, insistent. 

Adrian sighs against his neck, squeezing Lyudmil briefly. "Jesus- Lyuddy, it's too early for this." 

In a huff, Lyudmil scoffs. "It's almost noon, Adrian." 

"That's not my point, I don't want to deal with this right now."

"Is that why you won't get out of bed?" 

"Excuse me?" Adrian doesn't let go, though he's clearly agitated. 

Lyudmil fidgets in Adrian's hold, turning around to look into Adrian's half lidded eyes. He's serious now, no longer sweetly singing jokes to Adrian, no longer trying to persuade him with flippancy. "You won't leave your bed or your room because you've found comfort in being alone here with me. Like this, you can pretend the rest of the castle is as it was, and that your world hasn't come apart around you. You don't want to leave because leaving would mean confronting every terrible thing that's happened, because you can see it plainly, and that scares you." 

_ Ouch. _

Lyudmil is met with silence, and deceptively indifferent eyes. He feels guilty, though he does not regret speaking the truth. Adrian can be read like a book, whether he believes that or not. Breath hits Lyudmil's forehead, a hesitant exhale before a meek expression. "Fucking hell. You really had to go for my throat like that, didn't you?" 

"So I'm correct."

"Of course you fucking are."

"So will you get up now?"

"No." 

"And why's that?"

"Would you believe me if I said I wasn't ready."

"You'd never lie to me, so if you said that I would… but I don't think you'll say it."  _ Because it isn't true. _ He thinks but does not say, knowing Adrian wants nothing more than to get rid of this feeling, to air out all his grievances. 

Adrian sighs, slowly uncoiling his arms from Lyudmil's waist, coming to terms with the weight of the day. "I don't want to." He says. "I really, really don't want to." 

"Yes you do. You want to be free of your tragedies, the same as everyone else. You just don't know how to do that, you don't know where to start."

"Well where the hell do we start then," Adrian growls. "Why don't you tell me if you know so much about this sort of thing."

"We start with getting out of bed." He says calmly, undeterred by Adrian's attitude. "And then we move to finding something to eat. We're going to take this one step at a time." Lyudmil sits up, looking down at Adrian before rolling out of bed. He wordlessly takes his cloak from the bed, smiling despite it all, despite the tough love and repressed anger and simmering, budding hope.

"How will performing basic tasks alleviate my guilt and sorrow?" Anxious hands curl in the blankets, Adrian cannot look him in the eye, so Lyudmil doesn't force him to.

"They won't. Your feelings won't be swept away by basic self care, but you might find yourself a little more open to talking about them if you meet your basic needs." A drawer is pulled open, Adrian visibly shivers in the bed.

"That… sounds obvious…" Adrian hums. The anger has finally slipped from his voice, and he does not push away the clothes handed to him.

"Because it is," Lyudmil chuffs. He's gone through something too similar, and perfected coping down to a science; it's one that might not work for everyone, but it works for him, and he will do anything and everything he can to get it to work for Adrian. "Now then… why don't you get dressed?"

-

They dress and leave with few words spoken, make the trek out to the forest with no fanfare. When they pass by the bodies, Adrian doesn't flinch, but he does gently clasp a hand around Lyudmil's wrist, pulling him quickly away, distracting him from the sight and the horrible, putrid smell. It's otherwise a pleasant morning, chilly but overall beautiful. The sunrise is long since gone, and the sun tells him it's closer to early noon than morning, but everything feels still and calm enough that it feels as though the day has barely begun. 

Adrian ends up linking his elbow with Lyudmil's, carrying a basket in his other arm. Similarly, Lyudmil has his own basket. He feels a bit like a fairy tale character, donning a cloak and holding the arm of a handsome man- oh, he's going to shelve that thought and never bring it up again. How he embarrasses himself in his own thoughts, he will never know.

So the two walk arm in arm, through grass that's got patches of snow still clinging to it. Lyudmil wonders if it's done snowing, if spring will finally burst from the ground and get rid of this horrible gloom. He's sick of seeing the trees dead and sallow. Come to think of it, he's got no idea what time of year it is- either the world is sprinting from fall into winter or it's slowly coming out of hibernation and he has no idea which it could be. Traveling has confused him, it's put his surroundings and time into a bizarre filter, one he can't look through quite right. 

By the time they've reached a river, he's worked his brain into a tizzy, one that he quickly sidelines in favor of helping Adrian collect berries. 

Perhaps spring is closer than- if the vegetation is slowly making its way back. He tries not to think about it, letting the silence stretch on as they pluck sanguine fruits for minutes and minutes. Adrian is pensive, quiet, and eventually he stops his actions and leans back on his haunches. Lyudmil can only stop too, a terrible feeling of dread spinning itself in his abdomen. 

"I… I met them here," Adrian confesses eventually, eyes not meeting Lyudmil's but looking out into the sun-speckled forest. "It feels like days ago, maybe- maybe it  _ was _ days ago, I'm unsure. Nothing about it feels real…"

"It?" Lyudmil gently questions, a lump in his throat that prevents him from saying more.

Adrian dips his hand into his basket, picking out a bright red berry still attached to a large piece of stem. "Meeting them. Inviting them into my home- I promised to help them." Lyudmil shivers- acutely aware that Adrian is speaking in clipped sentences, being hasty but quiet, he's holding back. 

Lyudmil won't let him. "And did you?"

"I tried to," Adrian bites back, making Lyudmil aware without words that there are layers to that statement, that the whole situation is nearly as bad if not worse than what Lyudmil's thoughts can conjure up.

So he nods, knowing Adrian can only see him from the corner of his vision. "Then you did all you could. What was it they needed?"

He hears rather than sees Adrian squish the berry. The sound it makes is small, but it splatters. A small chunk of fruit is on Adrian's cheek, eerily reminiscent of blood. "They… had vampires in their country. An infestation if ever I'd heard of one. I tried to- I tried to help," Adrian gasps for the second time, unaware that his words are becoming cyclical.

"I've no doubt you did." And Lyudmil means it, not a single doubt goes through his mind that Adrian did everything he could. He doesn't need to hear the full story- he knows Adrian pulled them into his bizarre, wonderful circle of existence, with all his knowledge and power. Trinkets and talents alike, he gave them everything he could. Lyudmil knows- he  _ knows _ because that's what Adrian does. His light is bottomless, like a black hole that holds the sun at its center. His kindness is endless. "What was it that happened then? What did they do? Please tell me."

Silence, the sight of Adrian grinding his teeth."... Let's just say no good deed goes unpunished…"

"You're being vague."

"It's… hard for me to talk about." 

"We can stop talking about it, if you find it too difficult?" Lyudmil says softly, and Adrian appears to consider it for a moment. Lips pursed and eyes glassy, he doesn't look close to tears, but the anguish on his face is beyond palpable. 

He takes a breath eventually, dropping the berry guts, putting the basket to the side. He wipes his cheek with his sleeve at first, giving Lyudmil this unbecoming look of apprehension. "It's… it's easier if I show you." Adrian starts to peel back his sleeve, exposing more and more of the scar Lyudmil had seen earlier. It's a nasty thing- though it does nothing to detract from Adrian's beauty. It's just big, rough, like the skin was very recently scabbed over; it looks like getting it was a painful ordeal. Lyudmil's blood  _ boils. _

" _ Jesus Christ _ ," he gasps. He wants desperately to ask why, to try and understand who would be stupid enough,  _ cruel enough  _ to do something like that. He only refrains knowing he will be satisfied with no answer, knowing there is no good explanation for this. 

Adrian rolls the sleeve up before rolling down the other sleeve, showing off an identical scar. Lyudmil thinks he'll be sick when Adrian unbuttons his shirt to display even more damage. Very nearly, he misses Adrian starting to speak, to explain that night, to explain his injuries. "We were… together for a time. I taught them as I promised, we grew close. On the night that I…" Adrian pauses. There are tears in his eyes and his throat sounds parched, and gravelly. Lyudmil just takes his hand, softly stroking the back of it with his thumb. In seconds Adrian's shoulders droop, his muscles seem to relax as every inch of his body bleeds resignation. And then Adrian tells his tale. He slowly recounts the night they took advantage of him, the night he killed them in self defense. He tells Lyudmil how they waltzed into his chambers, lured him into peace with honeyed words and touches, forced his guard down with sex and the prospect of companionship. 

Every terrible little detail makes a home in Lyudmil's head, adds this insurmountable weight to his chest that he can't free himself of. When Adrian describes the pain- oh the  _ pain _ , of the silver and the betrayal, and most of all the realization after the hours of shock. He talks as though it was worse than any physical injury he'd ever received, just knowing that his life was going to be discarded by those he grew to care for. 

Adrian loves so easily, too easily. 

Lyudmil holds back tears when Adrian describes staking them- after hours alone, weeping, screaming, begging to wake up from this nightmare, this terrible punishment which he felt he deserved but could no longer handle. He feels sick, and disturbed, and Adrian looks just as sick and disturbed even though he was the one who did it. 

Lyudmil doesn't hesitate to come forward, wrapping his arms around Adrian, openly crying, quiet but supportive. They don't say a word to each other, they don't talk about it any further, they just stay in nature, taking in the silent noise.

When they make the journey back to the castle, Lyudmil insists upon going through an entrance by the stables. 

Adrian does not object.

It's a shaded part of the castle, one still covered in snow that doesn't have access to the hot, healing sun. It makes Lyudmil retreat into himself, into memories he misses.

Lyudmil doesn't remember how old he was when he went to stay with Adrian one day, only to have ice skates strapped to his feet and his body bundled in more fur than he could fathom. He only remembers seeing Adrian do the same before walking out to a pond with him, grin bright and big. Miss Lisa was out on holiday with Mr. Tepes, the two of them were home alone. 

He remembers so vividly being taught how to balance by Adrian, his hands gently but firm on his waist, his hold grounding. He recalls stability, and sweetness, and remembers promising to himself that he would do anything,  _ anything _ to make sure he would be the same way for Adrian one day, should he ever need it. 

He never thought Adrian  _ would  _ need it, and yet, here they are. 

His promise still stands.


	6. Chapter 6

They start with the bloodstains. 

Two buckets of ice cold water are drawn up, a horsehair brush finds its way into Lyudmil's hands just as suds find the marred stone. There's soap everywhere, tinted pink and a sickly brown by the coagulated mess across the castle. Lyudmil scrubs through the smell of copper, the tang of metal fresh in his nose, as though it was spilled mere seconds before he began to furiously scrub it away. 

Adrian helps- he spends time sprinkling powdered soap across the floor, in the little oak buckets they've acquired to help them, but he does little else. Lyudmil knows his mind is elsewhere, thinking of his confession, of his hardships- Lyudmil can't and won't blame him. There is fear in Adrian's eyes; the fear of consequence, of rejection, of loss- he should know by now that Lyudmil won't leave over something like this- not when his actions are so justified, so visceral. And yet here they are, Adrian is sending him these longing gazes, these worried glances, like he expects his friend of almost two decades to abscond after such a revelation. 

Lyudmil won't retreat, he won't even be disgusted, not by Adrian. He will find himself disgruntled over the situation, the idea that anyone would be awful enough to hurt Adrian so, but he will not be upset by his actions. 

Lyudmil wonders how they will remove the soot and scorch marks from the walls, as scrubbing at it only spreads around this black, tar like substance. He gives up trying to remove it after no time at all. 

They move on to the bodies in the main system of halls- what little remains of them now. They pack the few bones they find into a crate, and what little flesh is still rotting and crawling with maggots, they toss into another container. All that's left is scattered pieces of armor in both black and white, all gleaming silver staunchly intricate, they're so  _ heavy _ . Adrian has no problem piling them into his arms, marching down to the cellar; Lyudmil has trouble carrying only one set. They're made for vampires, they ought to be heavier, he reasons. Why else would the woven plates be so damn heavy, so thick? 

"Don't push yourself," Adrian mumbles. "You need not trouble yourself with this. I can focus on the removal if you wish to continue washing?" Lyudmil nods, well aware that he's no help moving all this fodder, all these leftovers.

"I've not much else to wash. I can seek out kindling, and flint if we need it?"

"We do. Check one of the tower attics? We used to store some up there, I think," Adrian huffs, throwing another set of armor over his shoulders into the comically large pile he already carries. Lyudmil does as he's told, eventually padding out into the cold winter air, flint in hand and heart in his throat as he approaches the crates of remains by the front entrance. They're soon dumped, Adrian joins him later, the flint is struck and it all catches fire; when all the bones are burnt up like kindling, and all the flesh melts away into ash, Adrian declares proudly that all the bodies have been removed from the castle. Lyudmil knows it isn't true, but he says nothing. He leaves Adrian to watch the pyre, and he approaches the pikes mere feet away from them instead. 

He hesitates, taking them down feels like a boundary too jagged to cross, but he knows it must happen. Adrian will ignore them- he will ignore them until he cannot ignore them anymore, until they're more putrid than they already are. And by the time he stops ignoring them, he will get used to them, to the sight of yellowing bone and browning blood and insect corpses scattered across every inch of once well loved strangers. It will be normal to him, wanton bloodshed and rot and revenge served cold and fruitless. It's unlike Adrian, it's inhuman, unhealthy, and Lyudmil won't let it happen. Besides, they're removing every other corpse from the battle, they're packing away every other violent little story the castle holds, what's one more? 

At first, he's tentative, he doesn't know what to do, how to go about it; he's never had to un-pike someone before, he hopes he'll never have to again. 

He contemplates how to get them off the pikes, how to unhook their jaws and detach distended throats- but he realizes it would be easier to just take the whole pike down, to pull them out of the ground. He gets a grip on one, from the top he tries to unroot them, and succeeds but for a moment. 

" _ What do you think you're doing?"  _ Adrian snarls, stalking his way across the grass to shoo Lyudmil away; he doesn't budge, not even when those strong, cold hands are trying to pry him away from the pikes.

"You know what I'm doing," Lyudmil deadpans, letting go of one pike and just making his way over to the other. They'll both come down no matter how much Adrian tries to chase him away.

"Stop," Adrian barks at him, following him, ignoring the blood on his fingers, the soot. He jerks when he walks, slow and lethargic with emotion, with rage and shock. Lyudmil uses it to his advantage. 

"Adrian…" Lyudmil pulls from the bottom this time, uprooting the pike and sending the body toppling down the steps- he wasn't prepared to catch it.

"I said  _ stop! _ " Ready to bolt, Adrian watches the body roll down frozen steps; his mouth hangs open before the smell hits him. It hits Lyudmil too, and the only thing they can do is cover their noses and gag. 

Lyudmil has to grab at Adrian before he can race down the steps after it. " _ Adrian! _ " He shouts. The two of them are no match in strength, but even subconsciously Adrian must know to be gentle with him, because he halts and doesn't drag Lyudmil down the steps behind him. He just growls and bucks as tears build in his eyes.

"Put it back, put it back, I don't want to do this!" He cries, trying to dislodge Lyudmil from him, trying to chase after his mistakes like it'll stop him from having to fix them. Lyudmil can't place where this outburst is coming from; he knew Adrian would react poorly, but this is unreal.

" _ You _ don't have to do this, but this does have to happen!" Lyudmil grunts, trying to keep his footing on the steps, trying to wrap his arms around Adrian completely. He only half succeeds. 

" _ No-! _ "

" _ Yes!  _ Let them  _ go _ , Adrian. Let yourself let them go…" Adrian struggles for a minute, thrashing but not harshly enough to hurt anyone, not enough to go bounding after the carcass now resting in the snow. He puts up a fight until he doesn't, until he's limp and shaking, and sinking into the steps with Lyudmil on his back. He's crying, unbothered by the trail of offal he sits in, but absolutely distraught over this situation. Lyudmil can only rest at his side, gentle hands rubbing over tense arms, trying desperately to give warmth to the body vying for comfort. When he speaks, his voice is hushed and careful, not wanting for even a moment to further overwhelm Adrian. "What they did to you, it was  _ wrong. _ You acted in defense of yourself, don't you dare be ashamed of that. But this? Love, this isn't right and you know it." 

Lyudmil isn't wrong; the bodies must come down. They have to go, Adrian must move on, but he wants to hit himself because he's fallen into the same trap as before. He's gone and approached this with no consideration, no tact; he's gone about it all wrong and now Adrian is crying  _ again _ and it's all his fault and the fault of these selfish cadavers. The fault of those two travelers, the ones currently none the wiser to their current escapades. Why had they not bothered to help Adrian with all of this before they left? Were they truly so hasty? Lyudmil wonders, did they leave as soon as the dust settled, so desperate to escape Adrian's doleful gaze and haunted home? His rage is only muted by concern; now is not the time to think of them. 

If ever they show their faces around this castle again, Lyudmil is going to have  _ words _ for them.

"It will happen again-!" Adrian can only sob. "If I don't keep them here, it will happen again!" 

Lyudmil pulls him in, gentle and insistent and so, so sorry. "They're dead, love. They can't hurt you now, and neither can anyone else."

A face finds the front of his shirt, and nuzzles its way into his chest, trying to believe, trying to block out the world. "You can't promise that…" 

"Yes I can," Lyudmil says, confident and final despite knowing how foolish it all is. What can he do, should trouble come knocking on their door? He is not weak, but he is human. Lyudmil is no mage, no fighter, he can hardly call himself a diplomat, seeing as he tumbles over his words and botches conversations at the drop of a hat. What can he do but nothing? His promises are empty, but they're not lies, not when Lyudmil would give his life. He has no skill but he has himself, and he will offer every bit of it to Adrian, to the security he deeply craves. It's uncertain how, but he would. "I can promise you that they're gone, and I know for a fact that as long as I've got breath in these lungs, I won't let this happen again." The cadavers aren't Adrian's safety net anymore, they can't be, Lyudmil is. 

There is a river of tears. "But how- how else will I keep people away?" Breath hitching, Adrian goes from passively being held to absolutely clinging to Lyudmil.

"You don't want to keep people away. You just want to avoid getting hurt, and that is not the same thing."

"Oh what do you know? What could you possibly know?" Adrian scoffs, pulling away with a harsh tone and a hitch in his breath. 

Lyudmil only sits, patient and strangely resigned. Adrian has never actively tried to make him feel stupid, but that comment cuts him deep, mostly because he  _ does _ know. He knows more about this dance of isolation and alienation and skepticism better than anyone. It would hurt less, Lyudmil thinks, if he really was ignorant. "I know more than you might think, Adrian. I know that you can get rid of them and still be safe." 

The shaking doesn't stop but the glowering does. Adrian reaches his own brand of finality, resignation, and he slumps with the realization. "... Fine then. Do what you have to. I won't help you."

So Lyudmil does. He gets up from the steps, slowly makes his way down, and then spends fifteen minutes trying to drag a dead woman towards the roaring pyre. The smell makes him gag, his eyes water with the tang of organic ash, and he heaves her into it with a great deal of effort. She burns up, and he wonders if things could've been different. How much better could things have been had she and her compatriot not attempted what they did that night? He will never know but he will never lose sleep over it. They don't deserve space in his head, and they aren't his problem anymore. 

Adrian says he won't help, but he does. When reality sets in and Lyudmil is dragging the second body down the steps and towards the pyre, Adrian takes it upon himself to heave him into the flames. He goes up as quickly as she did, as the rest of them. 

They're silent as they take turns walking to the well, and watching the flames. Dozens of buckets are ready for when the ashes finally start to settle, as everything is pulverized my man's great equalizer. 

-

They're catching fireflies, one evening, the air humid and swaddling, like a great big blanket of night. The grass around them is tall, the jars in their little hands are slick with sweat and condensation; they were once cold. 

"Will we be friends always and forever?" Adrian asks out of the blue, trying to trap a little lightning bug in his jar. 

Lyudmil jumps, the world having been silent moments before, save the noise of crickets and cicadas and birds around them. He's always startled so easily. "I dunno… I wanna say yes but… I'm gonna die someday," he says, unsure how to answer. He's so aware of his mortality, even now at twelve years old. He's seen so many people in his hometown die, so many other humans taken by disease and murder and horrible, unspeakable accidents. He knows the same fate can and will befall him someday, he knows everybody dies.

Everybody except the Tepes family. 

He knows by now what they are, fully and completely. He knows Adrian will continue to wall and talk and breathe and be, long, long after Lyudmil is pushing up daisies. The thought calms him. It's comforting to know that such a kind little family will always walk the earth. He knows Mrs. Tepes isn't like her son, or husband, but in his mind he can only see her as immortal too, he refuses to think of her any other way. 

"That doesn't change anything, though!" Adrian barks, little face all scrunched up in disappointment when the bugs just float on out of his jar. They forgot lids, and their hands aren't very effective for keeping the bugs in.

Lyudmil is confused then, unsure if Adrian is being literal, if he realizes that Lyudmil can't and won't last forever the same way. "Doesn't it though? How can we be friends forever if one of us won't be around that long?" He questions, genuinely perplexed. 

Adrian goes from being huffy to coy in the span of literal seconds, facing Lyudmil with this weird, dopey little look. He knows not what it means. "Well, who says I'm gonna live forever?" 

Lyudmil chokes on air. "Your mum, your dad- you've said it before! You bragged once about how you can last forever."

Adrian shrugs. "Maybe so… doesn't mean I will though."

Lyudmil's heart falls out of his body, suddenly afraid for Adrian and so very guilty. "What do you mean?" He questions, tone clipped, worried.

Adrian's jar makes contact with the tall grass, with the dirt; it doesn't crack, but it does make a dull thunk with the gentle impact of Adrian dropping it. He's padding over then, taking Lyudmil's hand and grinning like he's made some big discovery rather than proclaimed a tragic idea. "Well… if you're gonna die someday, then I wanna die someday too, so we can be friends always and forever- however long we last." 

It's the worst thing Lyudmil has ever heard.

"But I don't want you to die!" He shouts, dropping his own jar and not even flinching when he hears it crack. 

Adrian is shocked somehow, like he doesn't think anyone would care about him dying, like that isn't a disturbing thought to have. "Well I don't want you to die neither, but if we can only be friends until you're gone, then I guess I have to go with you…" 

Lyudmil recognizes his mistake and backpedals so damn fast. He's got both of Adrian's hands in his, he's clutching at his friend, frantic and afraid. His friend is too important, too amazing, he can't leave this world, not when it would be so dull without him. He couldn't care less about his own demise, but Adrian's? He wouldn't let that happen. "No! I change my mind- we will be friends always and forever, as long as you're alive, you'll always be my best friend! Until the end of time, no matter what happens to me, I'll always be somewhere beside you, somewhere close to your heart… even… even when I'm dead okay? You don't get to die on me like that, you jerk!" 

He recognizes that Adrian is trying to be endearing, and he almost feels guilty for the little frown Adrian's adopted now. "But… but what will I do without you?" He questions.

It's obvious that he wasn't expecting to be hugged, and yet here they are. Lyudmil clings to him, hugs him so hard he would be afraid of hurting him if he were human. "Dunno… anything- everything. Do all the stuff we did together, and all the stuff we couldn't." 

"But it won't be the same without you," Adrian croons, wrapping Lyudmil in a far gentler embrace. Lyudmil worries his bottom lip, afraid to let go.

"No… it'll be different, but it won't be bad. You can still have fun without me around, cause you can remember all the times when I was." It's about so much more than fun, and Lyudmil knows this but refuses to acknowledge it.

Adrian is picking him up then, lifting him into the air with no effort or mind at all. They're both inches off the ground, and Lyudmil wonders if he's doing it on purpose, or if his levitation is the result of being lost in deep, sorrowful thought. "But I'll just… spend all my time wishing you  _ were _ there…" he mumbles into the collar of Lyudmil's shirt. 

Lyudmil frowns like he's run out of things to say, excuses to make for his case. "Then… we'll make the most of what we have. We'll stick together for as long as I live, that way I can make up for what you'll miss later! But… but you have to promise me you'll stick around after I'm gone, okay? Promise you won't follow me away?" 

It's quiet for a long time, as the two are suspended in the air, Lyudmil being supported entirely by Adrian and Adrian hiding away in the crook of his neck. His breaths are so soft and so cold that Lyudmil can't help but shiver- even in the heat of a summer night he's as cold as ice. 

"I… I promise," Adrian mumbles after a while, noticing their suspension and setting them down softly. He still refuses to let go of Lyudmil, and eventually the two of them are lying in the dirt, staring up at the permanent stars, and the perishable lightning bugs at the edges of their vision. They would learn, years later, life is never ever so simple, and it's never that easy. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life is crazy! I had this chapter mostly written out not even a day after I posted the last one, but I couldn't put it out just because I couldn't find time to edit it for the life of me. There might even still be mistakes here, sorry about that.


	7. Chapter 7

They spend a whole day on laundry together, after a restless night and several hours of still, muted crying. Alucard is woken up to Lyudmil standing over him, a container of soap in one hand, a wicker hamper in the other, and absolute mania in his eyes.

The castle gets whited out by a torrent of bedding, sheets in desperate need of a good wash, blankets mottled with dust, moth eaten pillows that Lyudmil swears he can try to save. Alucard has his doubts, but he would be lying if he said there wasn't a possibility Lyudmil was right. He's handy like that, skilled in little tricks and clever fixes in a way that Alucard can't help but admire. His creativity is a product of his perpetually sunny demeanor. It was his idea to do this, to spend hours running every piece of fabric over washboards and soaking them in soapy water that steadily gets murkier, and murkier. Even when it takes them hours just to locate and collect every piece of laundry in the castle, he's optimistic, and still full of energy.

They're stuck in the washroom, a mechanical wonder of rotating wooden paddles and free flowing water. The fountains are currently occupied by every piece of fabric in the castle, and more than once Lyudmil has expressed concern for the contraptions overflowing. There are many more items to be washed, and Lyudmil has settled now for doing them by hand. He rakes sheets and curtains and quilts over washboards, scrubbing until the buckets around him are messes of suds and bubbles. 

"You make a better housewife than I would have guessed," Alucard jokes at some point, just to watch Lyudmil scrunch up his face and scoff. It's endearing, watching him pout with his whole body as he tries to rebuttal such a claim. 

He just scrubs away at the sheets, completely unbothered not a second later. "You make a fine husband, then, sitting on your ass while I'm hard at work…" he snaps. Alucard gasps back, feigning offense to a claim that is honestly very true. He's very little help right now, moving slow and going at this with very little enthusiasm compared to his friend. For some reason, he knows Lyudmil doesn't really mind, he knows that it's only a joke. It makes him feel warm, or something like it, to know that his inability to be chipper isn't a bad thing, and that Lyudmil probably doesn't mind doing most of this work on his own anyway. 

At least, he hopes so. "I give you a compliment, and you call me lazy."

"I didn't say you were lazy, I said you'd be a perfect husband; I only  _ implied _ you were lazy. Besides, it's not a compliment to be called a housewife." The idea that husbands are allowed to be lazy while their wives must be hard at work is overwhelmingly strange to Alucard. His parents just… didn't work like that when he observed them growing up. They were equals in all things, they taught him to treat others as such as well, and for a long time he assumed that was the way of the world. He was wrong though, he remembers countless stories from Lyudmil about his own home life, about the roles men and women had where he was being raised. It all seemed, to put it lightly, a little fucked up to Alucard. Even now it still does, then again, he was the one who started it, making a joke about norms with which he has no familiarity, relying on preconceived notions he knows his friend was raised to hold. 

"Why not? There's nothing wrong with being a housewife. I only meant that you're diligent, and you're inclined to keep things neat." There was earnestness in Alucard's words, albeit hidden behind layers of humor. Obviously his joke did not land well, he knows better now than to go bringing this up again. He thinks maybe he can salvage this conversation, giving Lyudmil this soft look and batting his lashes like a maiden. An earnest image can do wonders, he's come to learn. 

He knows it works because Lyudmil goes a little pink, heart kicking up every now and again just loud enough for Alucard's sharp ears to catch. It never gets old, getting physical proof of the attraction between them, the more than friendly bond they share but do not acknowledge. "W-well… it just… feels strange to be called one, I suppose…" Lyudmil stammers, Alucard smirks. 

"That doesn't change the fact that I'm correct," he declares, delighting in the rhythmic beat of Lyudmil's heart.

"Well now you're just being rude!" 

"I'm rude for telling you that you work hard? That you're clean? That you're organized? That our home would be a tomb without you?" Alucard catches himself saying 'our' instead of 'my,' and he doesn't know how to feel about it in the slightest. He understands the weight of that little slip as soon as he sees his friend react, however. The scrubbing of fabric against the metal washboard halts, and Lyudmil's mouth falls open. His face has gone red, and no sound is produced as he gapes at Alucard openly. 

"What?" Lyudmil balks, completely entranced by Alucard's equally warm face. He doesn't know what to say, how to explain himself; so, he just doesn't. Alucard closes his mouth, gets up, and stalks over to a pile of sopping wet laundry. 

"I'm going to hang these," he says, and does not look back.

He ends up in a sunroom that's been populated with clothes lines, all the windows flung open to help their laundry along. He's pinning each article down, trying desperately not to think of how much he adored Lyudmil's face even more than usual in those sweet, brief moments between them.

Moreover, he thinks of how true his words are, how deeply he means them even now. Lyudmil's arrival has made this gloomy castle so bearable, almost liveable. Even with the memories of a life long gone floating around, this place feels almost… like home again with him here. A strained, work in progress of a home, but a home nonetheless. The cadavers are gone, the blood has been washed, holes are slowly being patched, and Alucard is nowhere near alright, but he thinks he can try to get there now that he isn't living in a mausoleum. Having his needs met, the most basic ones of cleanliness and self actualization, it's helping more than he would have guessed. 

It hurts in a strange way, to think of how he doubted his truest and oldest friend about all this. Lyudmil didn't promise Alucard an overnight recovery, he promised him a start, and he delivered, and Alucard  _ doubted _ him for some reason or another. 

Now, as he stands, feeling accomplished with the small task of hanging laundry up to dry, he can't figure out just what made him doubt his friend in any capacity. Lyudmil has always been reliable, kind, true to his word. He isn't blunt or pushy or wrong about a great many things the way Alucard is. Lyudmil would have never expected Trevor and Sypha to stay, would have never made a claim he could be so utterly, terribly wrong about. 

Any good mood Alucard had disappears in an instant. He misses them. 

Their time was so brief but so poignant, at least in his mind. He knows that their time was a result of necessity, of great and overwhelming need; he often reminds himself of this, if only for consolation as to why they left so quickly. He supposes if the situation were reversed, he would want to leave quickly too. If he'd been forced to risk his life killing some stranger's father for the sake of the world, maybe he would want to run away from that stranger too; maybe he would want to avoid that stranger's bottomless sorrow. They were strangers, after all, they were together so briefly, they revealed so little. It just hurts, to mourn the friendship they could have actually built if they had just had more time, if their circumstances were different. 

Then again, he isn't so sure they would have all ever met if things were different. Alucard wouldn't have gone back to his private keep in a million years, not when he had his loved ones so close already. If he was never in Gresit, he never would have bumped into those speakers, into Sypha. Hell, if all was well and good and his mother walked through that door this instant then the speakers wouldn't have been in Gresit either. There would be nothing ending the world, no hoards to avoid; so then, Belmont would have never crossed his path either, not where he was headed, towards the bottom of a bottle. And hell, if they had met, who's to say it wouldn't have been a blood bath? Belmont is a Belmont, they kill night creatures, and Alucard might be passing but he is what he is. 

An image of neatly displayed skulls pops up in his head, one he cannot strike from his memory no matter how hard he tries. He has vivid memories of the hold, having spent so much time down there. When he was alone at first, he put so much effort into maintaining it, into keeping it clean. It was a gift after all, and he is nothing if not a responsible recipient. He put more effort into that vault of paper and deconstructed corpses, more effort than he put into his home. 

Alucard hasn't been back down there since Lyudmil arrived. 

He hasn't gotten much work done since leaving the laundry room, either, too lost in thought. There is still a basin of dripping articles he needs to hang up, the one in his hands has been dragging on the stone floor for some time now. 

His head is just so  _ loud _ . It rattles and pounds and echoes with thoughts of how he  _ wishes _ things were different. He knows this is his reality now, living in this castle that's too empty and bizarre with the only person in the world who still loves him- but he misses his fucking family. He misses his mother- he misses her so bad. He won't let himself think of her, of how much he misses her, because he won't cry but his chest will cave in, and he won't be able to breathe anymore. 

And his father- oh god, his father is someone he never expected to miss like this in his life. His father was supposed to be the one who was  _ always _ around. He knew his mother would expire someday, refusing to become one of them, and he never thought his father would be capable of genocide in her absence, not really- but  _ him _ ? He was supposed to live forever, the same way Alucard was. He was never supposed to die, Alucard was never supposed to be without him- he never prepared for the idea of losing him one day.

But he didn't just lose his father, he quietly reminds himself that he  _ killed  _ his father.

And he's hyperventilating before he realizes it. He can't breathe, he's breathing too fast, he isn't breathing at all- he's dying. Oh god, he's finally dying and it feels like a panic attack.

Death by panic attack, death by severe episodic panic, death by overwhelming guilt. It's what he deserves, it's more than he deserves, he deserves nothing. He doesn't even register the sound of the door opening or feet rushing over the floor to catch him before he falls. He's so high strung but far away that it doesn't occur to him.

He slides down the wall, sits on his legs, and stares into big, beautiful brown eyes. They could be red, in the right light. " _ Breathe _ ," Lyudmil instructs. "One in one out, please breathe."

So he does. He drags in breath after breath- his throat is raw, and he realizes he was screaming at some point. He just locks eyes with his friend, then holds him close and does not let go. He loves Lyudmil, he knows, adores him with every fiber of his being. Alucard can't help but admire him every time the two are close like this, hot and cold bodies slowly reaching equilibrium together. Lyudmil runs his fingers through Alucard's hair, and he shivers, unable to contain his body's permeating comfort. It helps, to think of someone he treasures, of the one constant in his life. His family may be gone and his life may be upside down, but at the very least he has Lyudmil, he will always have Lyudmil. Lyudmil will always have him. 

He doesn't fully calm down before Lyudmil pulls away, but he doesn't panic this time. Lyudmil is  _ holding _ his face then, tracing two soft thumbs over his cheeks and looking at him so softly. "You're thinking too hard," he says, soothing and sweet and sardonic. "I could hear it from all the way downstairs…"

"I'm sorry," Alucard says automatically. He's a mess- a fucking mess who cannot get off the floor still, a mess who is still healing wounds that are months old now.

Lyudmil shakes his head. "Don't apologize, are you alright?" No. Alucard is not alright, he might never be alright again. He feels like every connection he's built in life has been clipped short and discarded, he feels overwhelmingly alone with only one person around to care for him still. And even then, he feels so burdensome to this friend of his, this person who looks at him with reverence and love who Alucard knows he will scare away one day. He feels like a stranger in his own home. He feels like a murderer, and a failure, and a lonely fool. Progress was built this week, strong, good progress in the right direction, and it all goes down the drain because Alucard just can't seem to stop  _ crying _ . 

A sick little part of him wants this self pity, and he wants Lyudmil to finally scoff at him and give up. This little piece of his mind that tells him he deserves a fate worse than isolation begs for Lyudmil to laugh or yell or leave, but none of that happens. He curls in on himself and Lyudmil curls up right beside him, gentle fingers ghosting over any part of Alucard they can reach. His arms, his back, his bowed head, Lyudmil touches him so gently and so sweetly and he  _ croons _ . There is no vitriol from him, no anger, no agitation at the loss of time, of progress. He just shushes and whispers and gives contact that Alucard could shake off if he felt the need to.

He's overwhelmed by the kindness and understanding. Alucard deserves none of it, he wonders for the seventh time that morning just what makes Lyudmil love him, what makes him think Alucard is so special. 

He's drying Alucard's tears, smiling softly, sympathetically when Alucard finally chokes out a response with a muted smile and glassy eyes. "I am now."

-

Lyudmil has never been ice skating before, and it's a tragedy that Adrian simply will not stand for. 

Ice skating is the closest Adrian thinks a human can ever get to flying. It feels free, and fast, and elegant, the same way he feels when his feet leave the ground. Flying is weightlessness, and skating is so close to that giddy, sweet feeling.

He wants to share it with Lyudmil the way he shares everything else. 

The moon is out and the air is nippy when Lyudmil meets him from beyond the forest. Lyudmil comes to his doorstep and Adrian ushers him inside, all nervous elation marked by the pair of skates he pushes into his friend's hands not a second later. They don't exchange words, Lyudmil raises a brow but complys, sinking into a chair to lace up the skates as instructed. Adrian has his on already, has been prepared for this for hours now. He's jittery, Lyudmil is confused but pliant, he ties the skates off and hobbles for a minute before Adrian resolves to simply carry him out the door. He does not notice the blush high on Lyudmil's cheekbones. 

"Care to explain yourself?" Lyudmil chirps, safe from the air's chill and the falling snow thanks to an insurmountable number of furs and fabrics. Adrian would rather die than let him be cold. 

"It's a surprise!" Adrian huffs, shuffling over downed trees and gliding across swaths of pearlescent snow. It will continue into the night, he's sure of it, with the clouds and chill and crispness of the air comes snow. 

"Does this have something to do with what I told you yesterday?" 

"Maybe," Adrian replies, reaching a gloved hand around to cover Lyudmil's eyes. "It's a secret though!" They're not supposed to wander too far from the castle, as per the request of his mother and father. But they're absent anyways, out doing research for his mother's continued education. They won't find out about this little adventure, and what they don't know won't kill them. He doesn't speak a word to Lyudmil though, who he knows would protest going against the wishes of his parents at all. He values their opinion deeply, Adrian knows just what they mean to him.

So he keeps his mitten over Lyudmil's eyes, and carries him with no effort through snow and thickets weighted with ice. The pond is not  _ that _ far anyways, it's a small thing, close enough that Adrian was able to discover it in the first place. 

"Would you fly with me, if I asked you to?" Adrian asks very suddenly, his steps not slowing and his heart rushing in his ears.

"I would do almost anything you asked me to," Lyudmil answers immediately. "Heights are… well, I don't like heights, but I trust that you wouldn't drop me."

"You're in luck then, cause I'm not talking about that kind of flying." He removes his hand from Lyudmil's eyes and sets him down with care. He wobbles a little, unsteady on bladed feet; Adrian encourages Lyudmil to lean on him. They stare out at the pond and the pond stares back at them, and Lyudmil gapes for a second before pure confusion overtakes him. 

"You dragged me out in the middle of the night to stare at a lake?" It's a pond, but Adrian doesn't correct him.

"No, I dragged you out in the middle of the night to skate on a lake!" 

"I don't know how, though."

"I know you don't- I'm going to teach you."

"Good luck!" Lyudmil chuffs. "We both know I have the dexterity of an albino baboon." 

Adrian rolls his eyes. "You can borrow some of mine then," he takes a step forward, Lyudmil almost tumbles forward. "Careful!" Adrian laughs. "Lean on me? We're just going to step onto the ice nice and slow, alright?" Lyudmil looks at him with trepidation, a red face that sings of reluctance and embarrassment that Adrian doesn't know how to decipher. Moonlight does strange things, he thinks, it gives the flush on Lyudmil's face this quality that makes him look like he's glowing, like he's so much more than the fragile little mortal he is. He could be an angel in this light, or one of the fair folk, so sweet and so doleful. Adrian hardly knows what to do about it, the look his friend gives him when he leans in real close and takes Adrian's hand in his mittens. 

"Alright," the angel mumbles, "I'm trusting you." 

"Good," Adrian gasps. "Yes, good, alright," he has to look away, has to steer his gaze to the ice just to stop his heart from breaking down his ribs and thumping out of his chest. 

Adrian touches down on the ice first, solid and blue and perfect for their night alone together. It's with the utmost care that he guides Lyudmil onto the ice, who's light as a feather but shakier than a leaf. "Hold onto me," Adrian says, linking their arms and savoring the tremor Lyudmil holds him with. His legs won't stop shaking.

One step at a time, they skate. Adrian guides him through it like a dance, keeping his hands steady over Lyudmil's hips, holding him, cajoling him into an elegant waltz over uneven ice. The night passes so quickly, and the clouds overhead blot out the moon sometimes, but they stay close, warm. They spin and kick and glide around together, until Lyudmil can skate alone. He flits about, as free and serene as Adrian imagined him, but he always finds his way back to Adrian's side.

Adrian doesn't know that many years from now, he will look back on this moment as one of his last happy ones in life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm slowly trying to weed the angst out of this story, but it's going to be a process. In case it was confusing, Alucard goes by Adrian in the flashbacks even when it's from his point of view because he's still a kid, and in my mind that sort of means he doesn't have his reputation as "Alucard" yet. Hope that makes sense!


End file.
